A  COLLECTION  OF 


THE  WRITINGS 


OF 


John  James  Ingalls 


ESSAYS,  ADDRESSES,  AND 
ORATIONS. 


Ad  astra  per  aspera. 


— 1902— 
HUDSOX- KIMBEKLY  PUBLISHING  Co. 

KANSAS  CITY,   MO. 


COPYRIGHTED,  igoa,  BY 
MRS.  JOHN  J.  INGALLS. 

ALL  RIGHTS  RKSKRVKD. 


f 

•  THA 


DEDICATION. 
To  THE  PEOPLE  OF  KANSAS, 

FOR  WHOM  MY  BELOVED  HUSBAND  LABORED,  AND 

TO    WHOM    HE  OWED  SO  MUCH, 
THIS  BOOK  IS  GRATEFULLY  DEDICATED. 


PREFACE. 


The  late  Senator  Ingalls  wrote  many  things  which  man 
kind  will  forever  cherish  and  preserve.  He  enriched  literature, 
and  in  so  doing  gave  renown  to  his  State.  The  history  of 
Kansas  is  an  inspiration,  and  her  high  ideals  have  made  her 
immortal.  The  exalted  purpose  and  glorious  destiny  which 
her  pioneers  fixed  for  her  created  in  themselves  lofty  aspira 
tions,  and  under  their  leadership  she  became  a  brilliant  star  in 
the  national  tiara  and  a  power  in  the  Republic.  And  for  this 
proud  position  she  owes  as  much  to  Senator  Ingalls  as  to  any 
of  her  devoted  sons. 

This  volume  is  a  monument  of  affection.  While  it  is  mainly 
of  his  own  building,  the  wife  of  his  manhood,  the  mother  of 
his  children,  the  trusted  friend  and  adviser  of  his  course  and 
work,  and  the  companion  who  walked  with  him  in  the  journey 
of  this  life,  binds  with  her  love  and  her  wifely  devotion  these 
polished  blocks  wrought  by  his  genius.  No  one  ever  had  a 
more  enduring  memorial. 

In  preparing  this  work  for  the  press,  I  have  had  the  kindly 
assistance  of  many  of  the  friends  of  Senator  Ingalls.  The 
selections  from  his  writings  were  chiefly  made  by  Mrs.  Ingalls. 
Many  of  his  productions  are  known  so  well  and  loved  so  much 
that  it  was  imperative  they  should  go  in.  All  his  work  was  of 
such  high  order  that  it  was  a  difficult  matter  to  choose  one 
production  and  pass  over  another. 

WlLUAM    ELSEY    CONNELLEY. 

Washington,  September  15,  1902. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


The  readers  of  this  volume  will  find  on  every  page  excellent 
reasons  for  its  publication.  John  James  Ingalls  was  such  a 
man  as  does  not  grow  in  every  soil.  He  was  Kansas  incarnate. 
Whatever  he  said,  whatever  he  wrote,  whatever  he  did,  Kan 
sas  was  his  theme,  his  motive,  and  his  inspiration.  He  was 
of  the  Puritan  breed,  and  the  traditions  of  his  New  England 
ancestry  were  with  him  from  his  youth  up;  but  when  he  first 
set  foot  on  the  western  bank  of  the  Missouri  and  beheld  the 
land  of  his  dreams,  he  became  a  devotee,  a  lover,  a  worship 
er  of  Kansas.  His  highly- wrought  imagination  idealized  the 
wooded  slopes,  the  deep  ravines,  the  tangled  vines,  and  stretch 
ing  to  the  illumitable  west,  the  prairies  solemn  in  their  vastness 
and  mysterious  as  the  sea.  As  one  reads  the  history  of  those 
early  days,  how  clearly  the  truth  comes  to  him  that  the  actual 
is  not  half  the  picture.  In  the  deadly  conflict  between  free 
dom  and  slavery,  men  forgot  the  corn  and  wheat,  and  saw  only 
the  beauty  that  should  come  after  the  Right  had  won.  The 
making  of  a  State  is  a  grim  work,  and  those  brave  State-makers 
could  not  stop  to  listen  to  the  carols  of  birds;  but  some  of 
them  kept  the  music  in  their  hearts.  John  J.  Ingalls  was  a 
born  poet.  Brilliant  as  was  his  career  in  the  Senate,  it  yet  is 
certain  that  literature  was  his  true  field. 

When  Kansas  finished  her  fight  with  the  aliens,  her  war 
against  those  who  insulted  her  with  shackles,  she  moved  for- 


8  JOHN  JAMES  ING  ALLS. 

ward,  joyous  in  her  freedom.  After  the  war,  people  came  to 
settle  there  by  thousands.  And  such  a  people  have  never  be 
fore  or  since  built  up  an  American  commonwealth.  It  has  been 
fashionable  among  giddy  and  unthinking  people  to  make  jokes 
about  Kansas, — jokes  ranging  in  merit  from  zero  to  the  bot 
tomless  depths  below  zero — but  meanwhile  Kansas  has  not 
paused  in  its  march  to  the  front.  It  cannot  be  denied  that 
she  has  had  her  freaks  and  her  follies,  but  let  us  remember  it 
is  the  stupid,  and  not  the  wise,  who  never  err.  The  heart  of 
Kansas  has  always  been  right.  An  educated,  enlightened 
people,  worshiping  the  lights  of  duty,  conscience,  and  truth, 
may  briefly  go  astray,  but  in  the  long  run  they  will  always  be 
found  "true  to  the  kindred  points  of  heaven  and  home." 

I  speak  of  these  things  only  to  vindicate  her  from  the  shal 
low  and  inconsiderate  criticisms  of  those  who  do  not  know  her 
history  or  appreciate  her  true  position  in  the  Union.  She  needs 
no  defense.  The  twelfth  census  is  just  out,  and  it  tells  the 
story  of  Kansas  in  the  eloquent  figures  which  place  her  in  the 
vanguard  of  the  States. 

The  western  bank  of  the  Missouri  at  Atchison  is  lined  with 
bluffs  whose  rugged  sides  stand  out  boldly  toward  the  river 
and  the  opposite  shore.  On  summer  nights  it  needs  no  poet's 
eye  to  see  that  it  is  beautiful.  The  yellow,  sluggish  river 
changes  to  molten  silver  when  the  rising  moon  plays  upon  it 
with  the  witchery  that  makes  pictures  for  poets.  Once  I  sat 
upon  the  bluff  that  overlooks  the  river,  when  Senator  Ingalls 
said:  "This  is  my  Euphrates  and  my  Ganges,  and  I  love  to 
think  that  these  turbid  waters  .have  rolled,  as  long  as  they, 
down  to  the  all-embracing  sea." 

He  was  a  lover  of  home;  and  no  one  who  was  permitted  to 
share  its  sanctities  can  forget  how  sweet  a  place  it  was.  His 


INTRODUCTORY.  9 

wife  and  his  children  were  the  lights  of  his  life, — and  he  was 
theirs.  He  did  not  give  his  heart  to  every  new-fledged  stranger, 
but  to  those  who  were  his  friends,  "and  their  adoption  tried," 
he  was  open  and  unreserved.  Looking  back  upon  a  friendship 
of  thirty  years,  I  can  say  but  this:  "I  knew  him  well;  I  loved 
him  well." 

What  brought  him  fame?  The  answer  undoubtedly  is: 
his  own  genius.  But  there  were  certain  collateral  influences, 
and  mayhap  the  dominant  voice  of  "Opportunity"  had  some 
thing  to  do  with  it.  The  Kansas  Magazine,  that  brilliant  ven 
ture — the  child  of  promise,  and  of  early  death — first  gave  him 
to  me,  but  he  had  long  been  known  to  Kansas  people  as  their 
most  brilliant  citizen. 

I  was  new.  Arriving  in  December,  1871,  I  first  found  a 
boarding-house,  and  then,  studied  Kansas.  The  Kansas  Maga 
zine  began  its  brief  career  in  January,  1872.  Henry  King  was 
its  editor.  I  have  never  known  a  finer  literary  judgment 
than  his.  He  had  in  him  the  making  of  a  Lowell,  or  a  Matthew 
Arnold,  but  the  St.  Louis  Globe-Democrat  swallowed  him  up, 
and  now  he  is  editor-in-chief,  with  many  honors  and  great 
emoluments. 

I  lived  in  a  town  untrammeled  by  railroads,  but  it  was 
a  Kansas  town,  and  therefore  bright,  cultivated,  and  filled 
with  educated  people.  The  Kansas  Magazine  was  a  forlorn 
wager  by  certain  enthusiasts,  that  Kansas  could  maintain  a 
high-class  literary  monthly.  They  lost;  but  losing,  they  won. 
John  J.  Ingalls,  the  most  brilliant  of  its  contributors,  became 
United  States  senator  because  he  wrote  "Catfish  Aristocracy" 
and  "Blue  Grass." 

His  career  was  a  stormy  one;  but  above  the  stress  of  events 
there  was  always  a  consoling  influence  in  wife,  children,  friends, 


io  JOHN  JAMES  INGAULS. 

and  the  blessed  ministration  of  letters.  I  came  upon  him  once 
in  the  midst  of* a  terrible  senatorial  struggle,  of  which  he  was 
the  central  figure,  and  found  him  reading  Charles  Lamb's 
"Essays  of  Elia."  He  was  self-poised  always,  and  I  never 
saw  him  thrown  from  the  even  balance  which  he  habitually 
maintained. 

The  summer  preceding  Mr.  Ingalls'  election  to  the  Senate 
was  warm  in  more  senses  than  one.  The  liberal  Republican 
movement,  headed  by  Horace  Greeley,  was  on,  taking  from  us 
many  of  the  old  "war-horses"  of  the  party,  leaving  big  scars  in 
the  ranks,  which  sadly  worried  our  leaders.  Fresh  from  Wis 
consin,  I  became  a  delegate  to  the  great  Lawrence  convention 
of  1872,  which  nominated  Lowe,  Phillips,  and  Cobb  for  Con 
gress.  The  story  of  that  convention  has  long  since  ceased  to 
be  interesting  or  important.  But  this  much  I  must  tell:  Mr. 
Ingalls  was  made  permanent  chairman.  I  came  up  from 
Montgomery  County,  very  youthful  and  very  verdant,  having 
behind  me  only  six  months'  residence  in  the  State.  I  had  never 
seen  Mr.  Ingalls,  but  had  been  captivated  by  his  articles  in  The 
Kansas  Magazine.  It  was,  I  think,  on  the  evening  of  the  first 
day  that  the  convention  adjourned  over  until  ten  or  eleven 
o'clock  the  following  day.  After  breakfast,  I  was  introduced 
to  Mr.  Ingalls,  and  we  sat  together  in  front  of  the  Eldredge 
House,  enjoying  the  bright  summer  sun  and  air.  Then — how 
it  came  about  I  know  not — we  started  for  a  walk  down  Massa 
chusetts  Avenue.  Before  we  came  back  to  the  convention, 
we  had  talked  about  many  things — but  not  one  word  of  poli 
tics.  Books  and  literature  occupied  a  place  in  our  hearts  that 
morning  far  above  the  approaching  struggle  in  the  convention. 

The  following  winter  he  was  elected  senator,  and  held  his 
seat  for  eighteen. years. 


INTRODUCTORY.  i i 

I  shall  not  discuss  his  career  in  the  Senate.  In  the  public 
records  it  is  amply  disclosed.  He  was  a  great  senator,  honored 
by  his  fellow-members,  who  made  him  President  pro  tern.,  and 
looked  up  to  him  as  the  best  presiding  officer  in  that  body. 

Great  men,  almost  without  exception,  have  a  fine  sense  of 
humor.  To  prove  this,  Shakespeare  alone  suffices.  Abraham 
Lincoln  would  have  broken  down  under  the  tremendous  strain 
of  the  war,  had  not  a  merciful  Providence  enabled  him  to  see 
the  humorous  side  of  daily  events.  The  humor  of  Senator 
Ingalls  was  of  a  most  subtle  character.  His  mind  was  so  alert 
that  he  could  not  wa.it  the  slow  processes  of  ordinary  humor, 
but  must  burst  forth  spontaneously  in  sudden  and  unexpected 
flashes  of  repartee  and  epigram.  In  debate  he  was  without 
an  equal  in  the  Senate.  A  Pennsylvania  senator  once  made 
an  attack  on  Kansas.  Instantly  Ingalls  rose  to  reply,  and  not 
content  simply  to  defend  his  own  State,  he  dashed  straight 
into  the  weak  points  of  Pennsylvania.  To  stand  on  the  defen 
sive  was  never  his  way.  He  said:  "Mr.  President,  Pennsyl 
vania  has  produced  but  two  great  men;  Benjamin  Franklin, 
6f  Massachusetts,  and  Albert  Gallatin,  of  Switzerland."  Noth 
ing  was  left  for  the  Pennsylvania  senator  but  to  beat  a  hasty 
retreat. 

He  was  a  scholar,  and  all  his  tastes  were  scholarly  and 
refined.  His  knowledge  of  words,  and  his  unerring  skill  in 
choosing  always  the  right  one,  were  proverbial.  In  debate  I 
believe  he  was  superior  to  John  Randolph,  who,  in  his  day, 
was  the  terror  of  his  opponents.  He  was  such  a  splendid 
fighter  that  many  people  think  of  him  simply  as  the  great  mas 
ter  of  invective  and  of  pitiless  sarcasm ;  but  read  "Blue  Grass," 
or  his  article  on  Albert  Dean  Richardson,  or  his  beautiful  trib- 


12  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ute  to  Ben  Hill,  and  the  kindly  elements  of  his  nature  become 
strongly  and  sweetly  visible. 

In  my  study  hangs  a  frame  which  encloses  an  autograph 
copy  of  the  greatest  of  American  sonnets.  I  am  not  at  all 
certain  that  it  is  not  the  greatest  sonnet  in  our  language.  The 
sonnet  is  a  highly  artificial  form  of  versification  with  its  mechan 
ical  regularity  of  fourteen  lines,  and  is  therefore  the  easiest 
kind  of  a  poem  to  write.  You  set  the  clock,  and  when  it  has 
run  down,  you  have  the  sonnet,  which  almost  always  is  a  mere 
piece  of  automatic  verse,  signifying  nothing.  The  little  prat 
tling  poets  turn  them  out  in  great  numbers.  But  because  it  is 
easy,  the  sonnet  is  the  most  difficult  of  all  forms  of  verse.  How 
many  good  sonnets  have  been  written  in  the  English  language? 
Only  a  few,  and  they  only  by  the  great  ones.  Shakespeare  did 
everything  better  than  anyone  else  in  all  the  world.  But  how 
many  of  Shakespeare's  sonnets  do  you  remember?  In  almost 
every  one  there  are  flashes  of  genius  that  mark  them  as  Shake 
speare's  legitimate  offspring;  but  many  of  them  are  involved 
and  hard  to  understand.  Mr.  Ingalls  was  once  visiting  me  in 
Topeka,  and  we  arranged  to  take  a  ride  the  next  morning  up 
the  west  bank  of  the  Kaw,  into  the  country  of  the  bluffs  and 
meadows.  On  the  top  of  a  bluff  we  stopped  and  looked  out 
on  the  beautiful  landscape  touched  with  the  morning  light, — 
such  a  landscape  as  is  known  only  in  Kansas, — when  suddenly 
he  turned  to  me,  waving  his  hand  outward  to  that  scene  of  sur 
passing  beauty,  and  began  reciting  the  famous  Thirty-third 
Sonnet  of  Shakespeare : 

"Full  many  a  glorious  morning  have  I  seen 

Flatter  the  mountain-tops  with  sovereign  eye, 
Kissing  with  golden  face  the  meadows  green, 
Gilding  pale  streams  with  heavenly  alchemy." 


INTRODUCTORY.  13 

He  knew  and  loved  the  sonnet,  but  he  also  knew  its  limita 
tions.  That  fine  critical  judgment  could  never  have  been  led 
into  the  folly  of  giving  to  the  world  an  ordinary,  commonplace 
sonnet,  which  is  the  last  infirmity  of  shallow  minds. 

After  Shakespeare,  the  great  sonnets  of  our  language  were 
written  by  Milton,  Wordsworth,  Keats,  and  Mrs.  Browning, 
with  one  or  two  by  Landor,  Leigh  Hunt,  and  Lowell.  But 
when  I  try  to  think  of  one  superior  or  even  equal  to  "Oppor 
tunity," — I  seek  in  vain. 

As  I  have  said,  the  sonnet  hangs  in  my  study,  written  in 
his  bold,  large  hand,  and  as  I  read  it  a  thousand  memories 
crowd  upon  me.  From  the  sordid  environment  of  this  great 
commercial  city,  I  waft  him  a  sad  farewell,  and  beg  that  I 
too  may  be  counted-  with  those  who  have  loved  Kansas  and 
believed  in  her  to  the  uttermost. 

GEORGE  R.  PECK. 

Chicago,  November  30,  1902. 


^ 


t/ 


n^ 


JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 


Confessing  Emerson's  estimate  of  a  man  to  be  safe  and  sub 
stantial,  it  is  easy  to  foretell  the  position  that  posterity  will 
award  John  James  Ingalls.  "  I  count  him  a  great  man,"  says 
the  Sage  of  Concord,  "who  inhabits  a  higher  sphere  of  thought, 
into  which  other  men  rise  with  labor  and  with  difficulty,  *  * 
who  is  what  he  is  from  nature,  and  who  never  reminds  us  of 
others." 

By  this  rule  of  isolated  personality,  John  James  Ingalls  is 
certain  of  racial  immortality.  His  contemporaries  may  fail  to 
give  true  judgment,  because  immediateness  makes  for  exag 
geration  or  depreciation;  but  posterity  will  give  the  unerring, 
infallible  decision.  In  that  higher  sphere  of  thought  where  he 
moved  with  ease  and  grace,  few  men  lived.  In  vain  do  we 
scan  the  horizon  of  our  history  for  another  who  reminds  us  of 
him.  To  him  whose  name  is  identified  with  one  single  poem, 
an  isolated  law,  or  a  discovery  in  science,  enduring  testimonial  of 
greatness  is  often  denied.  The  man  whose  life  is  an  impulse 
to  his  own  generation  and  to  the  generations  following,  who  is 
the  center  of  an  ever-widening  influence,  in  whatever  realm  of 
action,  never  dies.  The  prophetic  instinct  bears  witness  that 
the  memory  of  John  James  Ingalls,  in  oration,  essay,  and  per 
sonal  impulse,  will  never  fall  within  the  shadow  of  oblivion. 

For  a  quarter  of  a  century  he  played  a  distinguished  part  on 
the  stage  of  human  events,  lending  lustre  to  the  drama  of  our 


1 8  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

national  life.  In  all  those  years  he"  stood  by  the  side  of  men 
whom  posterity  now  delights  to  honor,  and  suffered  no  de 
crease.  His  star  was  ever  in  the  ascendant  until  the  hour  it 
disappeared  to  shine  upon  a  wider  horizon. 

In  the  most  wonderful,  most  dazzling  and  individual-eclipsing 
epoch  of  all  history,  he  commanded  the  attention  of  a  mighty 
people,  whose  power  and  intelligence  are  unparalleled  in  the 
story  of  man.  From  his  colleagues,  who  displayed  a  large 
ness  commensurate  with  the  largeness  of  the  age  in  which 
they  lived,  he  compelled  admiration.  About  him  men  arose 
whose  light  gleamed  for  awhile  and  then  disappeared,  but 
his  flame  neither  flickered  nor  failed.  At  a  time  when  oratory 
was  called  a  lost  art,  he  never  wanted  a  thronging,  interested, 
and  enthusiastic  audience.  In  an  era  when  the  storm  of 
books,  magazines,  and  newspapers  cheapened  literature,  dulled 
the  aesthetic  instinct,  and  stultified  thought,  his  words  upon 
the  printed  page  quickened  the  intellect  and  made  luminous 
the  power  of  the  Anglo-Saxon's  language.  In  an  age  when 
demagoguery  abounded,  rioting  in  deception,  hypocrisy,  and 
lamentable  ignorance,  his  integrity  went  unchallenged,  his 
leadership  was  consistent,  undisputed,  and  without  guile. 
Whether  in  the  Senate  Chamber,  in  the  forum  of  political 
debate,  or  in  the  realm  of  literature,  he  struck  and  sustained 
the  loftiest  notes  in  thought  and  speech,  and  made  his  melody 
a  fascination.  To  encompass  his  personality  from  a  single 
view-point  is  impossible.  Of  his  work  and  his  life  there  will 
be  as  many  estimates  as  there  are  individuals  seeking  his 
measure.  While  he  lived,  his  every  step  was  bitterly  con 
tested  by  marvelous  hostility,  and  admirably  supported  by 
wonderful  and  indestructible  lovaltv.  The  State  of  Kansas 


,JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS.  19 

never  produced  his  equal ;  the  Nation  has  presented  but  few 
who  were  his  superiors. 

For  the  hidings  of  his  power  we  need  not  seek  far.  The 
qualities  of  mind  and  heart  that  lifted  him  above  his  fel 
lows  had  their  secret  springs  in  a  magnificent  ancestry.  In 
the  study  of  his  career  there  is  no  one  point  at  which  his 
biographer  can  forget  the  influence  of  the  mighty  Puritan 
stock  from  which  he  sprang.  The  blood  and  iron  that  made 
this  Nation  supreme  in  all  the  world  vitalized  his  every 
thought  and  word  and  deed.  From  that  same  ancestry 
sprang  James  A.  Garfield,  twentieth  President  of  the  United 
States,  and  Salmon  P.  Chase,  forever  a  monumental  figure  in 
our  history.  Richly  endowed  by  Nature  with  the  mysterious 
forces  of  ancestry,  her  lavish  bounty  flowed  full  and  free  in 
the  creation  of  his  environment. 

It  is  the  destiny  of  genius  to  be  presented  against  a  dark 
background.  The  progress  of  civilization  is  through  up 
heaval,  and  the  development  of  power  comes  by  conflict  with 
adverse  forces.  Circumstances  do  not  make  the  individual, 
nor  are  they  made  by  him.  They  give  him  the  opportunity 
to  make  himself.  '  Had  John  James  Ingalls  remained  in  New 
England,  his  name  now  might  dwell  with  those  of  Longfel 
low,  Bmerson,  Whittier,  and  Holmes  in  the  memory  of  the 
people.  In  early  college  days  the  prophecy  of  this  possi 
bility  was  given.  There  are  many  who,  losing  the  signifi 
cance  of  his  life,  regret  that  he  refused  to  the  sovereignty  of 
literature  his  genius,  and  entered  the  realm  of  politics.  But 
the  conspiracy  of  Providence  is  not  to  be  challenged.  Destiny 
determined  him  as  one  of  the  great  architects  of  a  mighty 
empire.  The  power  of  his  personality  is  silhouetted  against 
the  dark  and  tearful  and  bloody  background  of  tne  stormf ul 


20  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

beating  years  that  mark  the  travail  of  the  Nation  and  the 
birth  of  Kansas;  the  State  whose  sponsor  was  Liberty,  whose 
baptism  was  with  the  rich  red  blood  of  the  apostles  of  free 
dom  and  the  champions  of  an  unshackled  civilization. 

Above  the  mantel-piece  in  the  library  of  his  beautiful 
home,  Oak  Ridge,  in  Atchison,  hangs  a  copy  of  a  highly  col 
ored  lithograph  setting  forth  the  advantages  of  the  West— 
the  allurement  that  attracted  his  youthful  attention  and 
persuaded  his  separation  from  his  Eastern  home  and  his 
migration  to  the  great  Territory  which  was  to  forever  bear 
the  impress  of  his  life  and  work.  His  entrance  into  national 
affairs  was  neither  through  the  portal  of  accident  nor  by  the 
"sesame"  of  influence.  For  him  law  left  no  place  for  chance. 
The  circumstance  was  fortuitous  only  through  careful  and 
painstaking  preparation.  When  the  hour  struck,  he  was 
ready.  Long  before  he  entered  the  United  States  Senate,  he 
had  resolved  upon  that  very  thing.  Years  before  his  elec 
tion  by  the  Legislature  of  Kansas,  careful  and  cautious  pol 
iticians  had  predicted  that  very  event.  Of  his  years  in 
national  affairs  let  his  biographer,  at  some  future  date,  speak 
in  detail.  The  mere  announcement  that  he  was  to  speak 
crowded  the  Senate  Chamber  and  galleries. 

Honored  by  the  selection  of  his  colleagues  as  their  pre 
siding  officer,  his  execution  of  the  duties  of  that  office  drew 
from  them  a  complimentary  resolution.  Upon  the  walls  of 
the  library  of  that  home  may  be  found  the  original  of  this 
resolution.  It  is  interesting,  reading  thus: 

''Resolved,  That  the  thanks  of  the  Senate  are  due,  and  are  hereby  ten 
dered,  to  Hon  John  J  Ingalls,  a  Senator  from  the  State  of  Kansas,  for  the 
eminently  courteous,  dignified,  able,  and  absolutely  impartial  manner  in 
which  he  has  presided  over  the  deliberations  and  performed  the  duties  of 
President  pro  tempore  of  the  Senate 

"Attest:  ANSON  G   McCooK,  Secretary" 


JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS.  21 

The  Senate,  as  an  additional  evidence  of  appreciation  of 
his  services  as  presiding  officer,  bestowed  upon  him  the  clock 
which  had  marked  the  time  for  that  body  from  1852  to  1890; 
and  it  now  strikes  the  solemn  hours  above  the  landing  of  the 
stairway  in  Oak  Ridge. 

The  agrarian  movement  in  Kansas  reached  its  full 
force  and  fury  in  the  summer  of  1890.  It  was  the  sequence 
of  years  of  hardship  and  disaster.  The  Government  was 
blamed  for  the  acts  of  Providence.  Reason  temporarily 
abdicated  her  throne,  and  vagary  held  full  sway.  Upon  the 
senior  senator  from  the  State  was  concentrated  the  storm 
intended  for  his  party.  He  was  the  one  colossal,  solitary 
figure  in  the  affairs  of  state  to  the  people  of  Kansas,  and  to 
them  he  was  the  incarnation  of  the  party  in  power,  which 
they  proposed  to  dislodge.  His  name  became  the  clarion 
cry  for  inciting  the  onset  of  foe,  and  for  stimulating  the  rally 
of  friends.  It  was  a  national  political  battle,  fought  within 
the  confines  of  the  State,  and  the  platforms  were  simply 
Ingalls  and  anti-Ingalls.  No  human  could  stem  the  tide. 
The  people  fell  under  the  hypnotic  influence  of  strange  gods. 
A  sacrifice  was  demanded,  and  the  proudest,  manfullest,  and 
most  potent  figure  in  the  State  must  be  the  fit  offering.  He 
breasted  the  storm  and  contested  every  inch  of  ground. 
Undismayed  by  sullen  threat,  he  fought — fought,  not  for 
himself,  his  prestige,  and  his  ambition,  but  for  the  State  that 
had  given  him  much,  and  to  which  he  had  in  return  given 
fame  such  as  Providence  had  not  granted  to  any  other  fortu 
nate  individual  to  bestow  upon  his  State.  At  no  time  in 
that  conflict  did  he  consider  what  defeat  meant  to  him. 
Always  present  was'  the  thought  that  if  the  mad  effort  suc 
ceeded,  it  must  mean  a  blot  upon  the  name  of  Kansas,  the 


22  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

State  he  loved  with  a  love  surpassing  woman's.  When  the 
decision  came,  and  with  it  his  retirement,  it  held  no  personal 
heart-hurt.  If  by  his  defeat  the  State  would  profit,  he  was 
satisfied.  At  that  time  men  predicted,  and  to-day  men  con 
fess,  that  in  the  hour  of  his  enforced  retirement  from  the  United 
States  Senate,  Kansas  did  herself  «a  grievous  hurt.  No  one 
has  yet  replaced  him,  and  the  State  holds  none  other  who  can 
be  accounted  his  peer. 

Had  he  been  less  great,  the  word  "  finis"  would  have  been 
written  a  decade  before  he  died.  But  Kansas  thrust  him  from 
the  Senate  Chamber,  and  gave  him  to  the  world.  Upon  the 
platform,  through  magazine  and  newspaper,  he  wrought  an 
ever-increasing  influence.  The  effulgence  of  his  star  bright 
ened  continually  until  it  swept  over  the  invisible  boundary  of 
life.  His  love  for  Kansas  never  failed ;  his  loyalty  to  the  State 
of  his  adoption  never  wavered.  Easily  her  most  distinguished 
son,  it  was  natural  kthat  alluring  opportunities  should  troop 
upon  him  with  persuasion  to  change  his  residence  where  finan 
cial  gain  would  be  more  easily  and  more  rapidly  attained ;  but 
these  he  steadfastly  refused.  Of  Kansas  he  wrote  and  sang 
and  spoke.  As  long  as  the  English  language  endures,  his 
tributes  to  her  magnificence  will  never  die.  His  dreamless 
sleep  is  upon  her  bosom — he  was  faithful  to  her  even  unto 
death.  No  honor  that  the  State  can  bestow  upon  his  mem 
ory  will  pay  the  final  debt  to  this  her  most  gifted  and  most 
famous  son, 

Marvelous  indeed  was  his  genius.  His  mighty  brain  knew 
neither  rest  nor  respite.  No  vagrant  moments  drifted  into  his 
life.  He  was  all  energy  and  intensity.  The  boundless  realm 
of  literature  paid  tribute  to  his  desire  for  knowledge.  His 


JOHN  JAMES  IXGAL.LS.  23 

stylo,  almost  a  new  creation,  sprang  full-orbed  from  laborious 
study  of  the  masters  of  the  language  in  which  he  wrote  and 
spoke.  Closely,  carefully,  and  impartially  he  studied  the  polit 
ical  and  social  problems  of  his  age,  never  ceasing  to  be  a 
scholar  and  a  philosophical  thinker.  Of  his  fame  as  an  orator 
and  rhetorician  I  need  not  speak.  His  voice  was  a  great  organ 
for  sound  and  melody.  The  tongue  that  could  pierce  and 
strike  like  a  two-edged  sword  could  also  drip  with  twilight 
dew  and  golden  honey.  His  style  was  almost  perfect. 

For  his  State  he  was  ambitious ;  for  himself  he  asked  but 
little.  For  his  home  he  dreamed  dreams  of  beauty  and  hap 
piness,  and  accounted  no  sacrifice  too  great  to  make  it  such. 
Personally  careless  of  the  honors  that  were  thrust  upon  him, 
he  rejoiced  in  them  only  for  the  sake  of  his  friends  and  family. 
By  those  who  knew  him  least  he  was  thought  to  be  cold  and 
selfish,  but  no  heart  ever  beat  in  more  reasonable  consonance 
with  the  misfortunes  of  the  lowly,  and  no  human,  however 
obscure  his  estate,  was  there  who  did  not  receive  from  him  the 
courtesy  that  marks  the  majesty  of  a  gentleman.  In  the 
cities  and  villages  that  dot  the  wide  empire  which  he  aided  to 
develop,  there  are  scores  of  men  who  yield  to  him  the  tribute 
of  love  which  his  helpfulness  and  cheer,  in  their  desolate  and 
youthful  hours,  commands  of  them.  Nothing  marks  his 
greatness  as  a  man  more  than  does  the  little  incident  in  that 
last  great  political  campaign  which  he  fought,  when  the  storm 
beat  sorely  against  him  and  when  he  saw  life's  hopes  and 
aspirations  for  future  service  to  the  State  shadowed  by  the 
cloud  of  defeat.  Other  men  might,  and  doubtless  would, 
have  refused  to  do  what  he  did— give  a  precious  hour  to  an 
obscure  and  friendless  lad,  inspiring  his  youth  and  buttressing 


24  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

his  courage  by  rich  suggestions  and  rare  advice — doing  all  this 
simply  because  his  heart  was  as  the  springtime's  bloom.  His 
was  the  simplicity  of  gianthood. 

Therefore,  there  can  be  no  wonderment  that  his  children, 
adoring  him  a's  a  mighty  figure  in  the  affairs  of  state,  linger- 
ingly  hung  about  the  fatherhood  so  full  of  rich  and  fragrant 
love  that  he  never  failed  to  pour  in  endless  bounty  upon  them. 
Proud  though  his  dear  wife  might  be  of  his  honor  and  his  fame, 
her  richest  memory  is  that  of  the  choice  comradeship  which, 
without  interruption,  always  existed  between  them.  Be  this 
the  greatest  tribute  to  his  memory,  that  the  home — his  haven 
of  rest  from  "the  foolish  wrangle  of  mart  and  forum" — which 
he  founded,  was  always  his  first  and  last  thought. 

Strange  that  even  the  heedless  and  the  unthinking  should 
have  believed  him  to  be  irreligious.  No  one  pondered  the 
great  facts  of  God  and  Immortality  more  than  he.  To  him 
life  beyond  the  grave  was  a  fact,  irrefutable  and  indestructi 
ble.  For  him  the  Scriptures  were  exhaustless  in  their  wealth  of 
thought  and  food  for  meditation.  God  was  the  All-Father  who 
never  hated  anything  that  He  created,  but  loved  His  children 
with  a  love  beyond  the  comprehension  of  the  human.  When 
his  bark  was  finally  launched  upon  "the  tides  that  ebb  for 
ever  and  whose  waters  are  never  darkened  by  the  shadow  of  a 
returning  sail,"  his  face  was  serene  and  confident.  He  fell 
asleep,  as  does  a  child  tired  from  the  day's  work  and  play.  The 
night  had  scarcely  ebbed,  the  day  was  yet  crepuscular  and 
faint.  By  his  side  stood  his  youngest  son ;  holding  his  hand, 
his  wife,  the  faithful  sweetheart  of  all  his  years,  murmured  the 
solemn  litany  of  the  prayer  which  our  Lord  taught  His  dis 
ciples.  Slowly  he  repeated  the  words  after  her,  lingeringly  he 
touched  her  hand — then  the  great  soul  winged  its  way  to  the 


JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS.  25 

undiscovered  country,  and  upon  his  life  fell  the  benediction, 
"Love  is  of  God;  and  every  one  that  loveth  is  born  of  God, 
and  knoweth  God." 

"Then  from  the  dawn  it  seem'd  there  came,  but  faint    ! 
As  from  beyond  the  limit  of  the  world, 
Like  the  last  echo  born  of  a  great  cry, 
Sounds,  as  if  some  fair  city  were  one  voice 
Around  a  king  returning  from  his  wars." 

EDWARD  FREDERICK  TREFZ. 
Kountze  Memorial  Church, 

Omaha,  Neb. 


MEMOIR. 


CHAPTER  I. 
Men  make  a  nation. 

"States  are  not  great 
Except  as  men  may  make  them." 

National  life,  strong  and  individual  in  character,  seemingly 
the  result  and  product  of  single  instances  and  of  personal  action, 
is,  in  reality,  the  aggregate  activity  of  the  millions  who  live 
under  the  shadow  of  the  flag.  History  deals  largely  with  indi 
viduals.  We  talk  of  Washington,  Lincoln,  and  many  others,  as 
though  each  in  his  day  held  in  his  single  person  all  the  mighty 
forces  which  controlled  the  national  destiny.  We  speak  of 
Grant,  and  Thomas,  and  Sherman,  and  Logan,  and  Sheridan 
as  though  they  forged  together  and  welded  into  unity  the  diver 
gent  national  elements  now  the  foundation  of  our  glorious 
country.  We  write  of  money-kings  and  wheat-kings, — of  polit 
ical  bosses  and  the  heads  of  labor  unions.  But  as  the  ocean 
misses  one  drop  of  all  its  myriads,  as  the  giant  cedars  of  Cal 
ifornia  feel  the  loss  of  one  woody  fiber,  so,  one  penny  less,  a 
sheaf  of  wheat  missing,  a  single  vote  awry,  one  single  crafts 
man  outside  the  fold,  and  the  money  sovereign,  the  grain  sov 
ereign,  the  king  of  the  ballot-box  and  of  the  crafts,  consciously 
or  unconsciously  suffer  loss. 

Bach  human  soul  has  a  potency  and  a  value, — a  place  to 
fill  in  the  universe.  And  that  is  why  it  is  a  human  soul. 

27 


28  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

And  yet  to  urge  that  "all  men  are  created  free  and  equal" 
is  to  fall  into  error.  All  men  are  not  created  free :  neither  are 
all  men  created  equal,  and  history  stands  ever  ready  to  over 
throw  the  fallacious  doctrine.  While  each  man,  like  each  blade 
of  grass,  has  a  place  and  power,  yet  there  are  men  and  men. 
Their  names  in  the  printshop  range  from  brilliant  type  to  great 
primer  in  lower  case,  and  in  small  and  large  capitals  above  that. 

"All  the  world' s  a  stage, 
And  all  the  men  and  women  merely  players.  ' 

The  drama  of  life  is  accurately  portrayed  by  Shakespeare. 
Men  of  every  station  appear  upon  the  stage.  They  stand  a 
moment  in  full  view,  and  then  are  swallowed  up  by  the  resist 
less  tide  of  time.  Many  of  them  play  insignificant  parts.  And 
while  the  play  cannot  proceed  without  them,  they  are  not  given 
name  and  mention  in  the  dramatis  persona.  So  it  is  in  the 
drama  of  history.  The  lower-case  men  rarely  get  in  at  all  by 
name,  though  many  are  heroes,  and  most  of  the  real  work  of 
the  world  is  done  by  them.  They  assert  themselves  as  a  body, 
and  not  as  individuals.  This  seeming  injustice  is  compensated 
by  Nature.  The  men  who  labor  possess  and  preserve  the 
genius  of  a  people ;  and  they  perpetuate  the  true  tendency  of  a 
nation.  The  cradles  of  the  truly  great  in  this  world  have  been 
rocked  by  the  hand  of  the  lowly,  not  infrequently  by  the  pov 
erty  stricken.  But  it  is  not  to  be  denied  that  the  play  has 
always  concerned  itself  mainly  with  large  and  small  capitals. 

Now,  if  the  figure  be  not  too  long  drawn  out,  somewhere  in 
this  upper-case  in  the  size  of  type  which  the  perspective  of  time 
will  justify,  will  be  set  the  name  of  John  James  Ingalls.  In 
the  annals  of  Kansas  it  will  be  "writ  large,"  for  these  annals 
cannot  be  written  without  it. 


MEMOIR.  29 

A  strange,  brilliant  unique  figure  in  our  history,  with  few 
claims  to  the  vast  elements  of  imperishable  renown  in  public 
affairs,  he  is  yet  an  inseparable  part  of  an  important  era  of  our 
national  life,  and  a  strong  factor  in  the  growth  and  glory  of  one 
of  our  most  illustrious  States. 

But  beyond  the  man  whom  the  world  knew,  or,  ratherp 
guessed  at,  was  the  man  himself — the  figure  inside  the  but- 
toned-up  exterior  known  only  as  thinker,  scholar,  poet.  Be 
yond  and  inside  this  severe  and  formal  figure  buffeted  about 
by  the  agitated  tides  which  try  and  trouble  men,  was  the 
husband,  the  father,  the  friend.  And  since  the  press,  polit 
ical  enemies,  and  mere  acquaintances  have  exploited  the  first 
man  and  sat  in  judgment  on  him,  it  is  just  and  fitting  that 
this  memoir  should  seek  to  portray  the  true  and  inner  man. 


CHAPTER  II. 

Edmund  Ingalls  came  from  England  to  Massachusetts  in 
September,  1628.  He  was  accompanied  by  his  brother  Fran 
cis.  They  were  members  of  Governor  Endicott's  colony,  and 
landed  at  Salem  in  September.  Francis  left  no  male  descend 
ants;  his  daughter  Mary  married  Roger  Belknap. 

Nothing  of  a  definite  nature  is  known  of  the  Ingalls  family 
prior  to  the  arrival  of  Edmund  and  Francis  in  America.  The 
traditions  of  the  family  recite  that  these  brothers  came  from 
Lincolnshire.  No  proof  of  this  is  known  to  exist;  and  the 
place  of  their  birth  is  unknown. 

These  brothers  seem  to  have  been  young  men  of  enter 
prise;  for  immediately  upon  their  arrival  in  America  they 
secured  a  grant  of  land  from  the  colonial  authorities.  The 
grant  contained  one  hundred  and  twenty  acres.  They  be 
gan  at  once  to  improve  it,  and  followed  farming  and  stock- 
raising;  they  also  established  a  tannery  on  their  farm,  where 
they  engaged  in  the  manufacture  of  leather.  Their  farm  was 
in  what  is  now  Lynn,  Essex  County,  Massachusetts,  of  which 
city  they  were  the  founders  and  first  settlers.  The  date  of 
this  settlement  cannot  be  determined  exactly,  but  is  known 
certainly  to  have  been  in  the  winter  of  1628-9. 

While  the  Ingalls  family  can  be  traced  only  to  the  coming 
of  the  brothers  Edmund  and  Francis  as  members  of  the  colony 
of  Governor  Endicott,  the  name  is  known  to  be  of  Scandi 
navian  origin.  In  the  northern  lands  of  Northwestern  Europe 
it  was  anciently  borne  by  the  royalty,  Ingialld  appearing  as 


MEMOIR.  3 1 

the  twenty-second  in  the  Norwegian  dynasty  and  as  the 
thirteenth  in  the  Danish  dynasty.  The  name  Ingialldr  is 
found  in  the  royal  lists  of  Sweden,  one  by  such  name  having 
been  king  of  that  country,  A.  D.  600.  It  is  probable  that 
the  name  was  carried  to  England  in  the  Danish  conquest, 
which  began  in  A.  D.  787.  The  old  chronicles  relate  that 
in  that  year  the  "Danes,"  really  the  people  of  Scandinavia, 
crossed  the  North  Sea  and  swarmed  along  the  shores  of  Brit 
ain.  They  swept  up  the  great  rivers  in  irresistible  hordes 
and  began  a  war  of  extermination  upon  the  tribes  of  their 
own  kindred,  the  Jutes,  Angles,  and  Saxons,  who,  more  than 
three  hundred  years  before,  had  exterminated  the  ancient 
Britons  in  those  regions.  These  pagan  barbarians  undoubt 
edly  carried  the  name — Ingalls — to  England  in  their  relent 
less  conquest. 

Had  we  time,  we  would  find  it  instructive  and  interesting 
to  study  these  fierce  old  nations.  Even  in  their  barbarous 
state  there  could  be  found  among  them  the  virtues  for  which 
the  Aryan  race  was  ever  noted.  They  fostered  justice  and 
equality  before  the  law,  and  established  assemblies  of  the 
people  for  the  transaction  of  business  of  a  public  nature. 
They  were  intolerant  of  tyranny  and  were  ever  lovers  of  lib 
erty.  In  their  society  women  held  a  high  place.  They  pos 
sessed  an  indomitable  courage;  and  through  admixture  with 
the  Normans,  a  kindred  people,  they  obtained  capacity  for 
great  enterprises  and  genius  for  the  establishment  of  stable 
end  just  government  never  before  equalled  in  the  world. 
Their  descendants,  of  whom  Edmund  Ingalls  was  one,  came 
into  the  rude  wilderness  of  North  America,  and  in  turn  became 
the  progenitors  of  a  race  with  hardy  and  lasting  virtues  and 
carried  conquest  from  ocean  to  ocean.  "In  them  was  renewed, 


32  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

with  all  its  ancient  energy,  that  wild  and  daring  spirit,  that 
force  and  hardihood  of  mind,  which  marked  our  barbarous 
ancestors  of  Germany  and  Norway." 

Edmund  Ingalls  fell  a  victim  to  accident.  In  August, 
1648,  he  found  it  necessary  to  visit  Boston,  then,  as  now,  the 
commercial  metropolis  of  Massachusetts.  Keeping  in  mind, 
as  the  Puritans  were  ever  prone,  that  life  is  uncertain  and 
death  inevitable,  he  made  his  will,  dating  it  August  28,  1648. 
On  the  way  to  Boston,  traveling  on  horseback,  he  fell  through 
a  defective  bridge,  receiving  such  injuries  that  he  died  from 
their  effects  a  few  days  thereafter — exact  date  unknown. 

Edmund  Ingalls  left  eight  children — among  them  Henry, 
the  sixth  child  and  the  third  son.  By  his  father's  will,  Henry 
had  the  "house  lot  bought  of  Goodman  West,"  also  land  in 
what  is  now  called  Chelsea  (Andover,  Massachusetts). 

This  son,  Henry,  lived  to  a  great  age,  dying  February  8, 

1718,  being  then  "about  90."     He  was  twice  married;   first 
to  Mary  Osgood,  at  Andover,  July  6,  1653,  wno  was  at  that 
time  of  the  age  of  twenty-one.     Their  second  son  was  named 
Henry;  born  December  8,  1656;  died  February  8,  1698. 

Henry,  the  son  of  Henry,  married  Abigail,  the  daughter 
of  John  Emery,  of  Newbury,  June  6,  1688.  Their  fourth  child 
and  second  son  was  Francis;  born  December  20,  1694;  died 
January  26,  1759. 

Francis  married  his  cousin,  Lydia  Ingalls,  November  19, 

1719.  Their  fourth  son,  Francis,  was  born  January  26,  1731; 
died  April  3,  1795. 

Francis,  son  of  Francis,  married  Eunice  Jennings,  Novem 
ber  12,  1754.  He  lived  in  Andover,  where  he  died  April  3, 
1795.  Their  sixth  son,  Theodore,  was  born  March  30,  1764; 
died  November  7,  1817,  at  Middletown,  Massachusetts. 


MEMOIR.  33 

Theodore,  son  of  Francis  and  Eunice,  was  three  times 
married.  The  third  marriage  was  with  Ruth  Flint.  The 
only  son  of  Theodore  and  Ruth  Flint  was  Klias  Theodore, 
who  was  born  October  7,  1810;  died  December  28,  1892. 

Elias  Theodore,  son  of  Theodore  and  Ruth  Flint,  mar 
ried  Eliza  Chase,  daughter  of  Samuel  Chase,  December  27,. 
1832.  Their  first-born  was  John  James  Ingalls,  the  subject 
of  this  brief  memoir. 

Elias  Theodore  Ingalls  was  educated  with  the  design  that 
he  should  become  a  minister  in  the  Congregational  Church  ^ 
of  which  his  ancestors  had  been  honored  members.  He  grad 
uated  from  Bradford  Academy,  and  was  above  the  average 
in  his  attainments.  Poor  health  made  it  necessary  for  him 
to  abandon  his  intention  to  enter  the  ministry,  and  he  began 
a  successful  business  career.  He  formed  a  partnership  with 
Samuel  Chase,  in  Haverhill,  in  1827.  He  married  his  part 
ner's  daughter.  In  1833  ne  established  himself  in  Middle- 
town,  Massachusetts,  as  a  merchant  and  manufacturer.  He 
was  a  pioneer  in  the  manufacture  of  shoes  by  machinery.  In 
1859  m's  factory  turned  out  six  hundred  pairs  of  shoes  a  day. 
In  conducting  his  business  he  did  not  forget  his  love  for  liter 
ature,  but  kept  abreast  of  the  advancement  of  the  time.  He 
was  one  of  the  leading  spirits  in  a  society  of  which  the  poet 
Whit  tier  was  a  member,  and  was  always  fond  of  the  Greek 
poets.  He  took  an  active  interest  in  the  affairs  of  the  Con 
gregational  Church.  He  was  long  independent  in  his  polit 
ical  action,  but  became  finally  a  staunch  Democrat,  though 
originally  a  Whig.  Later  he  became  a  Free  Soiler,  and  then 
an  Abolitionist.  He  lived  in  Haverhill,  Massachusetts,  the 
greater  part  of  his  life,  and  died  there. 


34  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

John  James  Ingalls,  the  oldest  son  of  Blias  Theodore  and 
Eliza  Chase  Ingalls,  was  born  in  Middletown,  Massachusetts, 
December  29,  1833.  The  ancient  Hebrews  numbered  their  gener 
ations,  counting  from  some  important  epoch.  Reckoning  thus, 
we  find  him  in  the  eighth  generation  from  Edmund  Ingalls, 
the  Puritan  immigrant  from  England,  who,  with  his  brother 
Francis,  also  a  Puritan  immigrant,  founded  and  first  settled 
the  city  of  Lynn,  in  1628.  This  was  in  the  eighth  year  from 
the  landing  of  the  Pilgrims.  For  nearly  three  hundred  years 
the  family  founded  by  Edmund  Ingalls  has  lived  in  America. 
Its  members  have  done  their  full  share  in  the  work  of  build 
ing  the  greatest  republic  the  world  has  known.  Such  ances 
try  is  illustrious. 

There  was  nothing  unusual  observed  in  his  youthful  dis 
position.  He  was  fond  of  sports  dear  to  every  boy.  These 
were,  though,  sometimes  irksome  to  him.  He  would  lose 
interest  in  games  or  other  pursuit  of  pastime  or  pleasure  and 
become  sedate  and  even  unhappy.  At  such  times  he  sought 
the  society  of  his  mother,  where  he  remained  quiet,  thought 
ful,  and  usually  uncommunicative.  He  was  reared  in  the 
Church  of  his  fathers,  attending  there  regularly,  often  writ 
ing  out  the  sermon  almost  word  for  word  upon  his  return  from 
the  Sunday  morning  service. 

The  boy  grew  into  youth,  and  was  kept  in  school  as  has 
ever  been  the  good  New  England  custom.  He  was  made 
ready  for  college  at  the  Haverhill  High  School  and  by  private 
teachers.  He  entered  Williams  College,  at  Williamstown, 
Mass.,  in  1851,  at  the  beginning  of  the  course  and  remained 
throughout,  graduating  in  the  class  of  1855.  Few  incidents 
of  his  college  days  are  preserved.  It  is  known  that  he  loved 


MEMOIR.  35 

the  pranks  of  college  students,  and  was   not  behind  others  in 
their  design  and  execution. 

A  few  months  prior  to  his  graduation  he  was  unjustly 
reprimanded  by  the  president  of  the  college.  His  sense  of  jus 
tice  was  supreme,  and  he  resolved  to  take  substantial  sat 
isfaction  for  what  he  regarded  as  an  attempt  to  humiliate 
him.  He  prepared  his  commencement  oration  with  this  pur 
pose  of  revenge  in  mind,  taking  for  his  subject  "Mummy 
Life."  Such  a  castigation  of  solemn  professors  and  college 
officers  had  not  before  been  written.  It  was  necessary  that 
it  should  be  submitted  for  revision,  and  the  faculty  eliminated 
the  major  portion  of  it.  He  took  the  precaution  to  pay  all 
fees  and  dues  before  Commencement,  exacting  a  receipt  show 
ing  him  entitled  to  a  certificate  of  graduation  as  a  Bachelor 
of  Arts.  The  faculty  had  not  thought  of  the  declamation 
of  the  original  oration.  Imagine  their  surprise  when,  in  the 
keen,  defiant,  sarcastic  manner  of  which  he  was  even  at  that 
time  master,  he  delivered  his  oration  as  it  was  originally 
written.  He  was  commanded  repeatedly  to  cease  speaking, 
but  he  held  forth  to  the  end.  When  his  diploma  was  handed 
him  at  the  conclusion  of  the  exercises,  it  proved  a  blank,  so 
far  as  any  testimonial  of  meritorious  scholarship  was  con 
cerned.  But,  relying  upon  his  rights  in  the  matter,  and 
armed  with  his  treasurer's  receipt  showing  the  liability  of 
the  college,  he  demanded  his  diploma,  as  a  matter  of  right, 
stating  firmly  at  the  same  time  that  he  would  bring  a  suit 
in  law  to  compel  compliance  in  case  of  refusal  to  issue  it  to  him. 
A  few  days  thereafter  he  was  given  a  diploma  in  due  form, 
and  the  incident  was  closed.  Twenty-five  years  later  his 
Alma  Mater  chose  him  to  deliver  the  annual  oration,  and  at 
that  time,  voluntarily  and  without  solicitation,  conferred 
upon  him  the  degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws. 


CHAPTER  III. 

"I  was  a  student  in  the  junior  class  at  Williams  College,"  writes  Mr. 
Ingalls,  "when  President  Pierce,  forgotten  but  for  that  signature,  approved 
the  act  establishing  the  Territory  of  Kansas,  May  30,  1854.  I  remember 
the  inconceivable  agitation  that  preceded,  accompanied,  and  followed  this 
event.  It  was  an  epoch.  Destiny  closed  one  volume  of  our  annals,  and, 
opening  another,  traced  with  shadowy  finger  upon  its  pages  a  million  epi 
taphs  ending  with  'Appomattox.' 

*          *********** 
"Floating  one  summer  night  upon  a  moonlit  sea,  I  heard  far  over  the 
still  waters  a  high,  clear  voice  singing: 

"  '  To  the  West !    To  the  West !     To  the  land  of  the  free, 

Where  the  mighty  Missouri  rolls  down  to  the  sea; 
|Where  a  man  is  a  man  if  he  's  willing  to  toil, 
And  the  humblest  may  gather  the  fruits  of  the  soil." 

"A  few  days  later,  my  studies  completed,  I  joined  the  uninterrupted 
and  resistless  column  of  volunteers  that  marched  to  the  lands  of  the  free. 
St.  Louis  was  a  squalid  border  town,  the  outpost  of  civilization.  The  rail 
road  ended  at  Jefferson  City.  Transcontinental  .trains  with  sleepers  and 
dining-cars  annihilating  space  and  time  were  the  vague  dreams  of  the  future 
century. 

"Overtaking  at  Hermann  a  fragile  steamer  that  had  left  the  levee  the 
day  before,  we  embarked  upon  a  monotonous  voyage  of  four  days  along 
the  treacherous  and  tortuous  channel  that  crawled  between  forest  of  cot- 
tonwood  and  barren  bars  of  tawny  sand,  to  the  frontier  of  the  American 
Desert. 

"It  was  the  mission  of  the  pioneer  with  his  plough  to  abolish  the  fron 
tier  and  to  subjugate  the  desert.  One  has  become  a  boundary  and  the 
other  an  oasis.  But  with  so  much  acquisition  something  has  been  lost  for 
which  there  is  no  equivalent.  He  is  unfortunate  who  has  never  felt  the 
fascination  of  the  frontier;  the  temptation  of  unknown  and  mysterious 
solitudes;  the  exultation  of  helping  to  build  a  State;  of  forming  its  insti 
tutions  and  giving  direction  to  its  cause." 

After  his  graduation  in  1855,  young  Ingalls  applied  him 
self  to  the  study  of  law.  Two  years  later,  at  the  age  of  24, 

36 


MEMOIR.  37 

he  was  admitted  to  the  Essex  County  bar.  But  Haverhill 
presented  few  opportunities  to  a  wide-awake  young  man  of 
studious  mind  and  keen  penetrability.  It  is  not  strange 
that  this  young  man,  with  the  natural  ambition  of  youth 
and  with  a  conscious  sense  of  his  power  even  then  to  sway 
men  with  his  mentality,  should  find  in  the  West  an  alluring 
field. 

A  lithograph  of  the  town  of  Sumner,  Kansas,  displayed 
by  an  enterprising  real-estate  agent,  attracted  Mr.  Ingalls 
to  the  State.  In  1858,  three  years  before  its  admission  to 
the  Union,  he  came  to  Kansas  and  sought  this  town  of  Sum 
ner.  It  was  at  that  time  a  thriving  little  frontier  settlement 
in  the  prime  of  its  booming  days,  and  with  a  promise  of  a 
growing,  prosperous  future.  Two  years  later  a  Kansas  tor 
nado  blew  Sumner  off  the  map,  and  Mr.  Ingalls  removed  to 
Atchison.  Here  for  forty  years  he  made  his  home;  not  only 
that,  but  he  gave  to  the  city  a  chance  to  get  into  history 
because  it  was  the  home  of  him  who  came  to  be  in  many 
respects  one  of  the  most  noted  citizens  of  Kansas,  and  in 
some  respects  her  most  illustrious  son. 

That  Mr.  Ingalls  should  enter  politics  was  inevitable. 
That  he  should  soon  become  a  power  therein  was  likewise 
inevitable.  His  was  too  intense  a  nature  to  be  otherwise 
than  a  power  in  anything.  Whatever  else  he  may  have  inher 
ited  from  the  "Ingialld"  of  the  old  Norwegian  dynasty,  or 
from  "Baron  Ingald"  of  the  "Doomsday  Book,"  the  power  of 
Thor  was  his  inheritance.  It  was  his  by  blood,  if  not  in 
inclination,  and  men  felt  his  presence  and  feared  it,  too — the 
certain  marks  of  superior  mentality. 

In  1859  he  was  made  a  delegate  to  the  Wyandotte  Con 
stitutional  Convention  that  met  to  frame  a  State  Constitu- 


38  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

tion,  and  he  impressed  himself  upon  the  fundamental  law 
of  the  State  in  the  phraseology  in  which  it  is  couched. 

The  next  year  he  was  secretary  of  the  Territorial  Coun 
cil,  and  the  next,  of  the  State  Senate.  In  1862  he  served  as 
State  senator  for  his  district.  This  official  record  served 
to  show  his  growing  power  in  public  affairs. 

The  Civil  War  found  Ingalls  serving  in  the  capacity  of 
judge -advocate  for  the  Kansas  Volunteers,  with  the  rank 
of  major.  '  At  the  same  time  he  was  laying  the  foundation 
for  his  reputation  as  a  writer.  During  the  absence  of  Colonel 
John  A.  Martin,  who  was  serving  in  the  war,  Mr.  Ingalls  was 
the  editor  of  the  Atchison  Champion.  The  literary  instinct 
ever  strong  in  him  found  outlet  for  activity. 

After  only  seven  years'  residence  in  the  State,  John  James 
Ingalls  had  come  to  be  recognized  as  a  force  to  be  reckoned 
with  in  all  public  affairs. 

The  great  source  of  his  power  lay  in  his  fine  command 
of  words.  But  words  are  only  the  signs  of  ideas.  He  who 
can  marshal  them  adroitly  must  have  a  control  of  ideas,  also 
a  power  to  think.  There  are  many  men  who  have  this  latter 
power,  but  they  miss  greatness  because  of  a  lack  of  ability 
to  give  expression  to  it.  The  double  gift  in  large  measure 
was  the  possession  of  this  New  England  nobleman  trans 
planted  in  the  commonwealth  of  Kansas. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

In  the  published  accounts  of  great  men,  it  sometimes 
happens  that  their  family  relationships  are  least  considered. 
When  John  James  Ingalls  died  in  August  of  1900,  the  press 
of  the  country  gave  double-column  space  to  his  picture, 
column  after  column  to  his  life  and  attainments,  but  only  brief 
mention  was  made  of  his  home  life  and  family  ties.  This  was 
well  enough,  for  the  casual  reader  cares  little  for  anyone  but 
the  man  himself ;  and  the  indifferent  public  often  judges  him 
from  his  overt  acts,  and  rarely  from  his  motives  and  influences. 
And  yet  it  is  generally  true  that  the  better  part  of  one's  life  is 
omitted  when  the  home  influences  and  associations  are  passed 
over  in  silence.  In  the  case  of  Mr.  Ingalls  this  is  certainly  true ; 
to  this  fact  those  who  knew  him  most  intimately  bear  willing 
testimony. 

In  1859  Anna  Louisa  Chesebrough  came  with  her  father's 
family  from  New  York  city  to  Atchison.  Hers  was  a  well- 
reputed  people,  whose  early  ancestors  were  the  associates  of 
John  Winthrop  in  the  settlement  of  Boston,  in  1630.  Her 
father,  Ellsworth  Chesebrough,  was,  for  a  number  of  years,  an 
importer  in  New  York  city.  At  the  time  of  his  death  in  the 
year  1864,  he  was  an  elector  from  the  State  of  Kansas  on  the 
Lincoln  ticket. 

When  Mr.  Ingalls  had  lived  in  Kansas  for  seven  years,  and 
was  thirty-one  years  of  age,  he  was  married  to  Miss  Chesebrough. 
The  wedding  took  place  on  September  27,  1865.  The  wedded 
life  then  begun  lasted  through  thirty-five  years  of  unbroken 

39 


40  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

faith  and  love,  and  ended  on  that  midsummer  night  in  Las 
Vegas,  when,  for  the  tenderly  affectionate  husband,  the  light 
went  out  and  the  dawning  of  his  new  day  was  the  sunrise  of 
eternity. 

"One  love,  one  home,  one  heaven  above, 

One  fold  in  heart  and  life; 
And  the  old  love  still  will  last  us  through 

To  the  journey's  end,  sweet  wife. 
And  reaching  on,  when  this  life  is  done, 

It  will  live  and  thrive  and  grow 
With  a  deathless  flame,  and  a  deeper  name 
Than  our  mortal  loves  can  know." 

Mr.  Ingalls'  home  life  is  one  that  for  the  glory  of  Kansas  her 
future  senators  would  do  well  to  emulate.  His  wife  was  his 
most  trusted  friend,  his  admirer,  his  inspiration.  In  her  he 
centered  the  love  of  his  life,  and  he  found  by  his  own  fireside 
the  haven  of  peace  his  soul  most  longed  for.  It  was  for  him 
the 

"Golden  milestone; 

Was  the  central  point  from  which  he  measured  every  distance 
Through  the  gateways  of  the  world  around  him." 

'Mrs.  Ingalls  was  essentially  a  home-maker,  as  her  husband 

-was  a  home-lover.     She  was  the  mother  of  eleven  children,  six 

of  whom  are  still  living,  and  seven  of  whom  grew  to  manhood 

and  womanhood.    When  her  fifth  anniversary  came,  there  were 

four  babies  in  the  house.     When  the  tenth  came,  there  were  six 

»living  children,  and  one  little  grave  in  the  cemetery.     Think  of 

;it,  you  mother  of  one  troublesome  child;  you  wife  who  feels 

that  maternity  is  a  burden !     Six  babies  under  ten  years  of  age ! 

To  the  happy  Ingalls  family  fatherhood  and  motherhood  were 

coronals  of  honor.     Their  children  were  the  inspiration  of  their 

lives,  not  the  trial  and  burden  of  existence. 

It  was  in  these  early  years  of  home-making  that  Mr.  Ingalls 
did  some  of  his  best  literary  work.  Four  months  before  his 


MEMOIR.  41 

death,  when  he  was  health-seeking  in  Arizona,  there  fell  into 
his  hands  a  circular  containing  an  extract  from  the  Quarterly 
Report  of  the  Kansas  State  Board  of  Agriculture  for  March, 
1900.  This  circular  contained  a  long  quotation  from  "Blue 
Grass,"  one  of  the  early  magazine  articles  that  helped  to  make 
him  famous.  On  the  back  of  the  circular  Mr.  Ingalls  wrote : 

"  Dearest  Wife: 

"  'Blue  Grass'  seems  to  be  one  of  those  compositions  that  the  world  will 
not  willingly  let  die. 

"Those  were  happy  days  when  it  was  written:   in  the  little  cottage 
on  the  bluff  looking  out  over  the  great  river;  with  a  roomful  of  babies; 
obscure  and  unknown;  waiting  for  destiny,  so  soon  to  come.     *     *     * 
How  far  away  it  seems! 

************ 

"YOUR  LOVING  HUSBAND." 

Socially,  Mrs.  Ingalls  was  by  birth  and  breeding  a  fit  com 
panion  for  her  illustrious  husband.  In  his  work  entitled  "So 
ciety  in  Washington,  Its  Great  Men,  Accomplished  Women," 
etc.,  Mr.  Randolph  Keim  says  of  the  wife  of  the  noted  Senator 
from  Kansas: 

"Mrs.  Ingalls,  the  wife  of  the  eloquent  senator  from  the  battle-ground 
of  the  slavery  contests,  is  one  of  the  interesting  ladies  of  the  senatorial  cir 
cle.  *  *  *  Amid  the  cares  of  family,  she  has  adorned  the  senator's 
social  life  at  Washington  with  the  same  distinguished  success  which  has 
attended  his  wonderful  career  as  one  of  the  striking  figures  in  the  upper 
branch  of  Congress." 

But  aside  from  the  home-keeping  and  social  traits,  Mrs. 
Ingalls  was  her  husband's  true  companion  and  helpmeet  in  all 
his  public  service  and  literary  effort.  To  her  he  paid  the  high 
compliment  of  valuing  her  friendship  with  her  love.  She  was 
for  him  counsel  and  ambition.  For  her  sakejie  became  an 
orator  and  a  statesman.  Through  her  inspiration  he  was 
moved  to  eloquence.  Through  her  wisdom  he  was  discerning, 
and  in  her  love  he  found  peace. 


42  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

"How  full  of  mournful  tragedies,  of  incompleteness,  of  fragmentary 
ambitions  and  successes  this  existence  is!"  So  writes  Mr.  Ingalls  on 
the  sudden  death  of  Senator  Sumner.  "And  yet  how  sweet  and  dear  it 
is  made  by  love!  That  alone  never  fails  to  satisfy  and  fill  the  soul. 
Wealth  satiates,  and  ambition  ceases  to  allure;  we  weary  of  eating  and 
drinking,  of  going  up  and  down  the  earth — of  looking  at  its  mountains  and 
seas,  at  the  sky  that  arches  it,  at  the  moon  and  stars  that  shine  upon  it,  but 
never  of  the  soul  that  we  love  and  that  loves  us,  of  the  face  that  watches 
for  us  and  grows  brighter  when  we  come.  *  *  *  Good-night.' ' 

It  is  perhaps  granted  to  few  women  to  know  a  married 
life  of  such  unbroken  trust,  to  have  such  sincere  admiration,  to 
feel  one's  self  to  be  of  so  much  use  and  comfort  to  her  husband 
as  it  was  Mrs.  Ingalls'  lot  to  know. 

Next  to  his  love  for  his  wife  was  Mr.  Ingalls'  affection  for 
his  children.  His  grief  for  the  little  ones  taken  away  in  early 
childhood  was  intense. 

"My  bereavement,"  he  writes  to  his  sister  after  the  death  of  little  Ruth, 
aged  seven,  "seems  to  me  like  a  cruel  dream  from  which  I  shall  soon  awaken. 
The  light  has  gone  out  of  my  life.  Ruth  was  my  favorite  child.  Her  tem 
perament  was  tranquil  and  consoling;  she  gratified  my  love  of  the  beauti 
ful,  my  desire  for  repose.  I  loved  her  most  because  she  was  so  much  like 
her  dear  mother."  And  he  adds  at  the  close:  "I  am  assured  we  shall 
meet  again." 

So,  too,  of  his  little  boy  Addison,  who  died  in  October,  1876, 
aged  four,  he  writes  to  his  father: 

"He  was  the  noblest  and  most  promising  of  my  sons,  as  Ruth  was 
the  most  lovely  and  engaging  of  my  daughters. 

************ 
"Yesterday,  beneath  the  clear  sky  that  brooded  above  us  like  a  cove 
nant  of  peace,  we  laid  him  to  sleep  beside  his  sister,  to  wait  the  solution  of 
the  great  mystery  of  existence  when  earth  and  sea  shall  give  up  their  dead. 
*     *     *     *     if  eternity  will  release  its  treasures,  sometime  I   shall 
claim  my  own." 

Of  the  children  who  grew  to  manhood  and  womanhood,  his 
daughter  Constance  seems  to  have  been  most  beloved,  although 
they  were  all  very  dear  to  their  father.  In  a  letter  to  his  wife, 
written  in  February,  1875,  he  says: 


MEMOIR.  43 

"Your  praises  of  Baby  Constance  find  a  constant  echo  in  my  heart. 
Since  Ruth  went  away,  I  think  Constance  seems  a  little  nearer  and  dearer 
to  me  than  any  of  the  rest  of  the  sweet  brood.  *  *  * 

"I  would  like  to  gather  you  all  around  the  library  fire  this  bitter  night 
and  talk  over  the  affairs  of  the  day." 

Constance  died  just  eight  months  before  her  father.  Her 
death  was  a  crushing  blow  from  which  he  never  rallied. 

It  would  be  cruel,  however,  to  the  memory  of  John  James 
Ingalls  to  dwell  on  these  sad  phases  of  family  life  only,  and  to 
omit  all  mention  of  his  intense  pleasure  in  his  home,  his  pride 
in  his  children,  his  keen  sense  of  humor,  that  to  his  political  ene 
mies  took  the  form  of  bitterest  sarcasm,  but  to  his  loved  ones 
and  intimate  friends  was  only  delightful  mirth.  His  love  of 
beauty,  too,  was  an  apparent  trait  in  his  daily  life.  Somewhere 
in  every  letter  and  in  every  speech  it  shone  forth,  not  by  con 
scious  effort,  but  because  it  was  the  inherent  part  of  a  brilliant, 
beauty-loving  mind. 

On  Thanksgiving  Day,  1891,  he  wrote  to  Constance  : 

"It  is  a  most  entrancing  morning.  I  have  just  come  in  from  a  stroll 
in  the  sunshine  to  and  fro  along  the  stone  walk  to  the  north  gate.  The 
sky  is  cloudless,  and  the  wind  just  strong  enough  to  turn  the  mill  slowly  in 
the  soft  air.  The  smoke  from  the  chimneys  rises  straight  to  the  zenith  and 
dissolves  in  the  stainless  blue.  In  the  deep,  distant  valley  the  river  glim 
mers  through  a  dim  silver  mist  woven  with  shifting  purple  like  the  hues 
which  gleam  on  the  breast  of  a  dove.  Undulating  along  the  horizon,  the 
bluffs  rise  like  translucent  crags  of  violet,  and  from  the  city  beneath  col 
umns  of  vapor  and  fumes  from  engines  and  factories  ascend,  accompanied 
by  a  confused  and  inarticulate  murmur,  like  the  whispers  of  protest  and 
pain.  *  *  *  During  the  night  it  rained,  and  the  grass  of  the  lawn  is 
green.  It  glitters  and  scintillates  with  the  transitory  gems  of  the  frost. 
Here  and  there  are  disappearing  ridges  of  the  snow  from  the  storm  of 
Monday,  and  in  the  hollows  of  the  grove  the  bronze  leaves  of  the  oaks  are 
piled  high,  to  be  dispersed  by  the  next  gale,  like  the  ruined  gold  of  a 
spendthrift,  or  the  vanishing  hopes  of  men." 

It  is  with  something  akin  to  loving  reverence  that  the 
stranger  must  look  into  the  home  life  of  this  man.  To  the  pub- 


44  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

lie  he  was  austere;  to  his  enemies,  he  was  caustic — "as  vine 
gar  to  the  teeth  " ;  to  the  student  of  humanity,  he  was  an  enigma ; 
but  in  the  home  in  which  he  was  husband  and  father,  he  was 
the  idol — the  genial,  loving,  refined,  thoughtful  man,  compan 
ionable,  delightful.  To  have  known  him  here,  to  have  compre 
hended  him  in  this  phase  of  life  where  his  virtues  showed 
serenest,  is  to  appreciate  the  rare  possession  of  the  memory 

that  holds 

"The  touch  of  a  vanished  hand, 
And  the  sound  of  a  voice  that  is  still  " 


CHAPTER  V. 

Senator  Ingalls  was  not  universally  popular.  Men  believed 
him  cold;  but  they  admired  him,  gloried  in  him,  took  intense 
satisfaction  in  the  word-battles  wherein  he  was  victor,  felt  a 
proud  sense  of  proprietorship  in  him  when  he  brought  fame 
and  honor  to  his  State,  cared  not  to  question  whether  Ingalls 
meant  Kansas  or  Kansas  meant  Ingalls  when  he  engrossed  the 
attention  of  the  Nation.  He  "never  wore  his  heart  on  his  sleeve 
for  daws  to  peck  at,"  and  the  populace  never  felt  sure  but  that 
somehow  in  his  impenetrability  he  could  dispense  with  it  alto 
gether.  Such  a  man  could  not,  in  the  very  nature  of  things' 
float  always  with  the  tide,  nor  fall  in  readily  with  mediocrity, 
nor  adapt  himself  easily  to  the  endless  contradictions  ever  man 
ifest  in  human  nature  as  seen  in  popular  outcry  and  the  froth 
of  public  sentiment.  It  was  imperative  that  Ingalls  should 
be  Ingalls — that  he  should  be  himself  and  true  to  himself. 
Whether  the  public  understands  or  misapprehends  a  man  is 
never  the  question  of  great  import;  the  vital  thing  is  that  he 
shall  understand  himself  and  have  the  courage  to  plant  himself 
on  the  rock  of  truth. 

But,  leaving  public  affairs  to  their  own  tortuous  turnings, 
we  seek  a  location  where  he  was  known,  loved,  honored,  under 
stood,  appreciated.  Even  his  relations  with  his  parents  and 
brothers  and^sisters  were,  in  their  own  proper  degree,  as  delight 
ful  as  those  which  charmed  and  brightened  his  own  home. 
Especially  was  his  respectful  and  confidential  attitude  towards 
his  father  an  admirable  trait.  ''Honor  thy  father"  was  accep- 

45 


46  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ted  by  him  as  being  the  sum  of  human  wisdom  in  this  relation, 
and  he  acted  upon  it  from  conviction  and  inclination.  No 
perfunctory  performance  here.  There  was  something  in  his 
nature  and  mentality  a  woman  could  discern  and  understand 
and  confide  in.  This  trait  manifested  itself  in  him  at  an  early 
age  and  made  him  seek  the  silent  society  and  companionship 
of  his  mother  in  his  moods.  This  strong  but  indescribable 
characteristic  had  its  appreciation  in  those  friends  who  saw 
beyond  the  surface  the  true  and  inner  man.  At  the  time  of 
his  death,  one  of  the  leading  daily  papers  of  the  West  said 
editorially : 

"Mr.  Ingalls  was  in  temperament  and  habit  gentle  and  kind.  Whether 
he  was  conversing  with  a  solemn  thinker,  a  woman,  or  a  ten-year  old  boy. 
he  always  adapted  himself  to  circumstances." 

It  was  not  granted  to  many  people  to  know  Senator  Ingalls 
intimately;  but  to  those  in  possession  of  this  prized  privilege, 
the  passing  out  of  his  life  made  a  void  never  to  be  filled.  For 
forty  years  his  home  was  in  Atchison.  When  one  of  his  fellow- 
townsmen  heard  of  his  death,  he  said : 

"  The  death  of  Mr.  Ingalls  is  a  great  loss  to  the  State;  it  is  a  great  loss 
to  the  nation;  but  it  is  a  greater  loss  than  all  to  the  town  of  Atchison.  By 
his  death  the  light  in  the  windows  of  Atchison  has  gone  out." 

Senator  Ingalls  never  sought  friendships,  and,  inasmuch  as 
few  people  knew  him  as  he  was  in  very  fact,  he  was  generally 
misunderstood.  Of  the  many  newspaper  estimates,  we  give 
three  quotations  from  the  Topeka  Daily  Capital,  as  just  and 
fair: 

"Who  can  say,  in  truth  and  honesty,  that  he  really  knew — compre 
hended,  understood — Ingalls?  He  gave  so  sparingly  of  his  intimacies 
that  small  opportunity  was  afforded  those  who  were  so  minded  to  gain 
an  insight  into  his  character;  to  Kansans  generally  he  was  an  enigma.  I 
refer  to  the  man;  not  the  orator,  the  politician,  the  student  of  history,  lit 
erature,  and  the  elegant  arts;  not  the  legislator,  the  advocate,  or  the  poet, 
but  the  personality." 


MEMOIR.  47 

"I  believe  there  is  but  one  person  in  all  the  world  who  knew  the  real 
man,  and  that  person  is  his  widow;  and  he  was  surely  remarkable,  even 
great,  for  he  was  ever  a  hero  to  her 

"A  man  may  misunderstand  himself,  but  his  wife  understands  him; 
he  may  deceive  himself,  but  he  cannot  practice  deception  upon  his  wife; 
he  can  hide  himself  from  the  world,  but  it  is  his  wife  who  finds  him  out; 
he  may  be  all  things  to  all  men,  but  his  wife  sees  him  as  he  is;  and  the 
man  who  is  great  in  the  eyes  of  his  wife  is  truly  great." 

"Kansas  was  not  just  to  Ingalls  when  he  was  alive;  let  her  see  to  it 
that  this  is  not  followed  by  cold  neglect  of  his  memory.  He  was  an  honor 
to  Kansas,  and  Kansas  should  do  honor  to  his  name;  he  shared  his  well- 
won  laurels  with  her,  and  she  accepted  them  gladly  enough ;  she  basked  in 
the  sunlight  of  his  success  and  partook  of  the  fruits  of  his  victories;  she 
was  first  in  his  thoughts  in  his  hours  of  triumph,  and  the  beneficiary  in  a 
hundred  ways  of  his  generosity.  What  he  had  to  give  her,  he  gave  with 
out  stint  or  condition,  for  he  loved  Kansas;  she  was  the  object  of  his  young 
manhood's  virgin  affection." 

"It  was  really  in  his  home  life,"  testifies  his  son  Shef 
field,  "that  the  noble  qualities  of  his  heart  and  mind  were 
shown.  He  was  devoted,  kind,  patient,  and  indulgent."  After 
all,  what  testimony  could  be  stronger?  Few  friendships,  and 
those  few  sincere,  to  a  man  of  an  intense,  concentrated  mind 
and  retiring,  reflective  disposition,  more  than  compensate  for 
the  babbling  crowd  and  the  "hail-fellow-well-met"  shallow- 
ness  gained  in  commingling  with  the  unthoughtful. 


CHAPTER  VI. 

"And  there  he  stands  in  memory  to  this  day,  erect,  self-poised, 
A  witness  to  the  ages  as  they  pass, 
That  simple  duty  hath  no  place  for  fear." 

— Whittier. 

In  the  sum  of  national  history  John  James  Ingalls  is  a  unit. 
A  pronounced  personality  he  was,  who  impressed  himself  upon 
his  time  in  his  own  individual  way;  and  his  imprint  upon 
state  and  national  affairs  is  fadeless.  To  rank  him  with  the 
colossal  figures  in  public  life  would  be  unfair.  To  put  him 
among  the  commonplace  would  be  unjust.  He  could  not  be 
commonplace.  No  one  who  ever  knew  him  even  slightly  would 
accuse  him  of  mediocrity. 

Mr.  Ingalls  was  essentially  a  public  man,  a  man  of  large 
affairs,  because  he  was  a  representative  man.  He  stood  for 
Kansas,  for  the  whole  State,  because  he  was  a  scholarly  thinker 
and  an  orator.  He  may  not  have  represented  specifically  and 
distinctly  the  man  who  likes  social  fellowship,  nor  the  mild- 
tempered,  peace-loving  citizen,  nor  the  dull,  unthinking  plod 
der,  nor  the  intense  partisan  of  an  opposite  political  faith;  but 
he  stood  for  the  thought  of  the  whole.  In  this  capacity  he  was 
peerless. 

For  twenty-five  years  he  was  before  the  footlights  of  pub 
lic  life,  and  for  the  whole  decade  after  his  retirement  he  was 
scarcely  less  conspicuous  than  when  he^was  actively  engaged 
in  public  affairs.  Not  long  before  Mr.  Ingalls'  death,  a  bril 
liant  young  Kansan,  casting  about  for  the  calling  in  which  he 

could  be^mostjjseful,  was  asked,  "What  subject  interests  you 

48 


MEMOIR.  49 

most?  When  you  pick  up  a  newspaper  or  magazine,  to  what 
theme  do  you  instinctively  turn?"  His  reply  was:  "I  always 
look  for  something  from  John  J.  Ingalls'  pen.  If  I  find  any 
thing  of  his  writing,  I  read  it  first."  This  young  man  was 
only  a  typical  Kansan  in  this  instance.  It  was  "the  power  of 
Thor"  (the  original  significance  of  the  old  "Ingiald"  name), 
asserting  itself  still.  How  could  such  a  nature  be  other  than 
dominant?  or,  as  we  term  it  in  a  republic,  representative? 

Kansas  is  a  peculiar  commonwealth,  and  even  when  her 
fifes  and  drums  are  still  and  her  swords  are  in  their  scabbards, 
the  gates  of  the  temple  of  Janus  stand  open,  and  a  warfare 
of  factions,  a  bloodless  contention,  keeps  her  records  full  of 
interest. 

That  was  a  tragic  chapter  in  the  peaceful  annals  of  the 
State  which  records  Mr.  Ingalls'  first  senatorial  accession.  It 
was  one  of  those  strange  stampedes  of  Fate,  unforeseen  and 
unconquerable. 

Eighteen  years  later  another  stampede,  unfortunate  for 
Kansas  and  the  Nation,  made  fortune  change  front  for  Mr. 
Ingalls. 

For  nearly  two  decades  Mr.  Ingalls  was  one  of  the  most 
illustrious  figures  in  Washington.  During  this  time  he  served 
the  Senate  in  its  most  responsible  requirements.  He  was 
chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Pensions  of  the  District  of 
Columbia,  and  of  the  special  Committee  on  Bankrupt  Law;  he 
was  a  member  of  the  Judiciary,  of  Indian  Affairs,  of  Education 
and  Labor,  of  Privileges  and  Elections,  and  of  many  other 
special  committees. 

He  was  a  frequent  debater,  and  made  many  elaborate 
speeches.  But  to  recount  his  public  life  in  these  words  gives 
no  idea  of  the  Senator  from  Kansas  in  the  days  when  all  Wash- 


50  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ington  hastened  to  the  great  Capitol  on  announcement  that 
Ingalls  was  to  speak.  He  was  a  force  that  once  felt  was  never 
to  be  forgotten.  It  was  said  of  him: 

''He  knew  language  as  the  devout  Moslem  knew  his  Koran.  All  the 
deeps  and  shallows  of  the  sea  of  words  have  been  sounded  and  surveyed 
by  him  and  duly  marked  upon  the  chart  of  his  great  mentality.  In  the 
presence  of  an  audience  he  was  a  magician  like  those  of  Egypt;  under  the 
power  of  his  magic,  syllables  became  scorpions — an  inflection  became  an 
indictment;  and  with  words  he  builded  temples  of  thought  that  excited  at 
first  the  wonder  and  at  all  times  the  admiration  of  the  world  of  literature 
and  statesmanship.  He  was  emperor  in  the  realm  of  expression.  The  Eng 
lish-speaking  people  will  listen  long  before  again  they  hear  the  harmony 
born  of  that  perfect  fitting  of  phrase  to  thought  that  marked  the  utter 
ances  of  John  J.  Ingalls." 

As  President  of  the  Senate,  he  was  superb.  His  graceful 
bearing,  his  dignity  of  manner,  his  alert  apprehension,  his 
quick  wit,  his  parliamentary  diplomacy,  all  combined  to  make 
him  master  of  the  situation.  Above  all  these  qualities  was 
confidence  in  himself.  When  others  were  excited,  he  was 
cool;  when  others  were  uncertain,  he  was  firm.  His  very  calm 
ness  gave  him  strength.  Very  rarely  has  that  great  and  re 
sponsible  office  been  filled  by  a  man  of  the  superior  ability, 
ripe  experience,  and  perfect  self-possession  possessed  by  Mr. 
Ingalls. 

Something  of  the  old  Viking  spirit  reappears  to-day  under 
modified  social  conditions,  and  enters  into  the  mental  make-up 
of  certain  characters  as  a  mark  of  strong  personality.  Had 
Ingalls  lived  in  the  days  of  Norse  supremacy,  what  a  terrible 
force  he  would  have  been !  But  coming  down  to  a  life  run 
ning  parallel  with  the  last  two-thirds  of  the  nineteenth  cen 
tury,  he  was  a  Viking  in  the  realm  of  words ;  his  weapons  could 
strike  deep,  and  his  wounds  were  next  to  mortal. 

Illustrative  of  his  quick  wit,  oratorical  power,  and  telling 


MEMOIR.  51 

sarcasm,  the  following  story  of  the  bout  between  Senator  Salis 
bury,  of  Delaware,  and  Senator  Ingalls  will  serve  as  an  example: 

Salisbury  had  invested  in  some  Kansas  bonds  that  were 
repudiated,  and  he  naturally  did  not  think  well  of  the  State. 
He  arose  one  day,  and  took  half  an  hour  to  express  his  opinion 
of  Kansas.  When  he  had  finished,  he  denounced  the  people, 
the  climate,  the  coal,  and  about  everything  else  in  the  State. 
Senator  Ingalls  uncoiled  himself  from  his  chair,  and  arose.  In 
mock  humility,  he  commented  on  the  rebuke  Kansas  had 
received.  Then  he  began  a  panegyric  that  held  the  galleries 
entranced,  It  was  one  of  the  most  eloquent  speeches  ever 
made  by  Ingalls.  He  went  back  to  the  days  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise,  and  reviewed  the  history  of  Kansas,  dwelt  on  the 
soldiers  the  State  furnished  for  the  Civil  War,  and  swept  down 
to  the  date  on  which  he  was  talking.  Then  he  stopped  a 
moment,  looked  at  Salisbury,  and  said.  "And,  Mr.  President, 
this  is  the  State  that  has  been  assailed  in  this  chamber  by  a 
man  who  represents  in  part — in  part,  Mr.  President — a  State 
which  has  two  counties  when  the  tide  is  up  and  three  when 
the  tide  is  down."  Salisbury  had  nothing  more  to  say. 

It  has  been  said  of  Ingalls  that  he  was  "a  vivisectionist 
with  intense  loves  and  hates,"  and  the  estimate  is  certainly 
true. 

Now  for  the  second  stampede  of  Fate.  The  most  noted 
senator  Kansas  ever  had  came  to  his  own  by  accident,  as  it 
were.  Politics  has  epochs.  We  observe  the  rise  and  fall  of 
conditions,  or  systems,  or  regimes,  in  the  progress  of  public 
affairs.  One  such  period  is  limited  by  the  term  of  John  James 
Ingalls'  official  life.  The  downfall  of  Pomeroy,  or,  rather,  of  all 
that  Pomeroy  stood  for,  marked  the  elevation  of  Ingalls  as  rep 
resentative  of  Kansas  Republicanism  in  party  affairs.  This 


52  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Republicanism  was  a  dominant  force  for  nearly  two  decades. 
It  ruled  the  State  during  her  years  of  agricultural  and  commer 
cial  development ;  it  attended  to  the  upbuilding  of  her  schools* 
to  the  establishment  of  her  temperance  laws,  and  her  strong 
moral  statutes  protecting  the  property  rights  and  advancing 
the  civil  rights  of  women.  It  held  the  public  offices  when  the 
plague  of  grasshoppers  came  down  from  the  Rocky  Mountains 
and  ravished  up  the  fullness  of  the  land.  It  dominated  affairs 
while  the  frontier  pushed  slowly  westward ;  while  dugout 
homes  and  stock-corrals  gave  place  to  comfortable  farm-houses 
and  capacious  barns  and  granaries.  It  was  in  powrer  when  the 
plague  of  the  boom  came  in  from  the  East  and  built  imaginary 
towns  of  impossible  values;  and  its  last  days  saw  the  collapse 
of  inflation  and  the  confusion  of  financial  tongues — forerun 
ners  of  depression  and  money  panic.  It  reached  its  culmi 
nating  point  when  Kansas  cast  180,000  ballots  for  James  G. 
Elaine  in  1884.  Think  of  180,000  Republican  voters  in  a  State 
that  thirty-five  years  before  had  less  than  1,000  inhabitants! 
There's  magic  in  it.  Xo  .wonder  Senator  Salisbury  from  Del 
aware  had  little  cause  to  ridicule  Kansas.  In  this  year  the 
Ingalls  regime,  the  power  of  which  he  was  the  exponent,  touched 
the  zenith.  After  that  comes  the  recessional. 

It  is  probably  not  in  place  here  to  enter  into  an  analysis  of 
the  rise  of  Populism,  although  the  temptation  to  do  so  in  just 
ice  to  the  memory  of  John  James  Ingalls  is  almost  irresistible. 
Some  day  when  the  searchlight  of  history  is  turned  on  Kansas 
annals,  when  narrow  partisanship  and  personalities  are  laid 
aside,  the  tide  of  events  and  the  reason  why  individual  doom 
should  lie  in  their  untamable  current  will  be  better  understood. 

Sufficient  is  it  to  say,  that  with  the  overthrow  of  the  old 
Republicanism  in  Kansas,  Ingalls,  the  last  heroic  figure  of  its 


MEMOIR.  5  3 

imperial  days,  went  down  to  defeat.  His  political  overthrow, 
like  the  physical  taking-off  of  William  McKinley,  was  not  for 
anything  in  the  man  himself,  but  because  of  what  he  stood  for. 
Populism  was  in  power.  He  was  in  its  way. 

Perhaps  no  one  interested  in  all  the  nation  felt  the  effect  of 
his  defeat  less  keenly  than  Senator  Ingalls  himself.  A  self- 
sufficiency,  the  result  of  having  remained  always  true  to  him 
self,  and  never  impaired  by  indiscriminate  friendships  and  idle 
association,  was  his  stay.  A  power  that  he  alone  knows  who 
lives  sometimes  near  to  Nature's  heart,  who  sees  the  beauty 
of  the  sky  and  landscape,  who  contemplates  the  broad  river 
and  the  far-off  horizon  line,  who  makes  fellowship  with  words 
as  the  signs  of  ideas,  and  who  looks  within  himself  for  his  com 
fort  and  pleasure,  a  power  never  defeated  by  the  ballot-box, 
made  life  altogether  restful  to  John  James  Ingalls,  while  his 
friends  wrung  their  hands  in  disgust  and  bitter  disappointment, 
and  his  enemies  rejoiced  in  an  altogether  vain  joy. 

Half  the  mental  misery  of  life  comes  from  a  lack  of  self- 
adjustment.  Ingalls  was  master  of  himself. 

A  man,  to  be  thoroughly  useful,  must  have  enemies.  They 
keep  his  nature  in  better  poise.  He  may  not  overcome  them 
in  life,  but  in  the  perspective  of  time  the  man  and  his  enemies 
both  fade  out,  and  what  he  did  stands  imperishable.  In  the 
case  of  the  gentleman  from  Kansas  there  are  certain  definite 
effects  upon  national  life  apparent  to  the  thoughtful  mind. 
Each  effect  stands  out  as  a  power  in  itself.  All  that  Ingalls 
ever  did  was  positive.  He  was  worth  loving  or  hating,  admir 
ing  or  fearing.  He  was  not  a  man  toward  whom  one  could  be 
indifferent. 

Ingalls  taught  to  his  generation  the  virtue  of  fearlessness. 
In  all  the  future  of  American  politics  the  quality  of  courage 


54  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

will  be  more  esteemed  because  of  one  man's  unconquerable  will. 
We  say  that  every  martyr  to  religion,  every  martyr  to  patriot 
ism,  every  martyr  to  scientific  discovery,  uplifts  the  soul  of 
mankind,  and  henceforth  its  plane  is  nearer  to  the  stars.  If 
this  be  true,  then  every  man  who  dares  take  issue  with  public 
opinion,  who  questions  not  whether  he  shall  make  himself 
popular  or  unpopular,  who  bears  a  reputation  for  fearlessness 
until  such  reputation  comes  to  be  a  badge  of  honor,  does  by 
one  degree  or  by  many  degrees  lift  mankind  above  mental 
cowardice  and  give  to  it  for  all  future  years  more  courage  and 
tolerance.  Such  a  gift  was  the  heritage  of  John  James  Ingalls 
to  the  young  men  of  Kansas  who  come  into  the  light  of  public 
affairs. 

Close  to  this  quality  of  fearlessness  is  the  virtue  of  origi 
nality.  The  man  of  whom  this  writing  is  a  memoir  carried 
an  influence  before  the  public.  He  was  admired  or  feared; 
never  insulted  with  indifference.  The  secret  of  the  interest  in 
him  lay  in  his  originality.  He  worked  out  his  problem  fear 
lessly,  and  in  his  own  way.  And  the  college  which  withheld 
his  diploma  until  compelled  to  issue  it  felt  proud  to  grant  him 
a  doctor's  degree,  and  to  call  him  to  fill  the  place  of  honor  on 
her  program  in  her  festal  days.  Nobody  could  forecast  Ingalls. 
Nobody  could  surmise  just  how  he  would  compass  his  victories, 
just  how  he  would  meet  his  defeats.  Nobody  could  have 
prophesied  how  he  could,  with  his  pen  or  tongue,  lay  bare  the 
deep-hidden  wound  of  his  enemy,  nor  that  his  dying  words 
would  have  been  the  prayer  of  his  childhood,  beginning  with 
the  expression,  "Our  Father,  which  art  in  heaven." 

He  lived  in  his  own  fashion.  He  thought  and  acted  in  his 
own  way.  He  was  himself,  not  a  borrowed,  assumed  person 
ality.  By  this  phase  of  his  character  he  has  made  life  a  little 


MEMOIR.  55 

easier  for  all  statesmen.  He  left  to  the  Senate  an  example  it 
may  do  well  to  emulate.  He  impressed  himself  upon  the 
Nation,  and  time  will  not  efface  the  pattern  of  his  making. 

One  more  contribution,  the  most  influential  of  all,  was  the 
dignity  and  force  he  gave  to  the  use  of  language.  Indeed  it  is 
possible  that  future  generations  will  remember  Senator  Ingalls 
for  this  thing  alone.  His  fine  sense  of  the  beautiful  put  rhythm 
and  music  into  his  speech.  The  standard  of  oratory  in  the 
United  States  Senate  to-day  is,  consciously  or  unconsciously, 
the  Ingalls  standard.  What  of  it?  We  call  him  great  who 
can  put  life  into  the  block  of  gleaming  alabaster.  We  honor 
his  skill,  as  that  of  a  benefactor,  who  can  so  blend  colors  on  can 
vas  that  they  grow  into  an  exquisite  reproduction  of  Nature. 
We  are  enraptured  with  his  power  who  can  steal  from  the  twit 
ter  of  birds,  the  babbling  of  brooks,  the  mournful  murmur  of 
the  pines,  and  the  loud  resonance  of  the  thunder-cloud  the  har 
mony  of  sounds  that  makes  the  symphony  of  music.  We  call 
his  genius  sublime  who  can  construct  the  great  cathedral,  with 
its  grooved  arches  and  mighty  domes,  its  symmetry  and  beauty, 
from  tessellated  floor  or  fretted  roof.  But  these  things  are 
commonplace  when  compared  to  the  plastic  force,  the  exquisite 
fineness  of  language.  This  fineness  and  this  force  was  the 
bequest  of  John  James  Ingalls  to  his  people. 

The  quality  of  fearlessness,  or  originality,  and  of  a  sense  of 
the  beautiful  expressed  in  words,  are  the  inheritance  of  the 
Nation  from  Ingalls.  These  great  mental  traits  help  to  shape 
the  thought  and  action  of  to-day,  and  through  them  Ingalls 
lives  yet  in  the  halls  of  Congress — the  peerless  Senator  from 
Kansas. 


CHAPTER  VII. 

After  his  retirement  from  the  Senate,  a  busy  literary  career 
opened  for  Mr.  Ingalls.  Newspaper  syndicates  and  publish 
ers  of  magazines  offered  him  the  highest  market  sums  for  articles 
from  his  pen.  Lecture  bureaus  and  Chautauqua  Assembly 
managers  eagerly  sought  to  add  his  name  to  their  list  of 
attractions. 

"I  am  not  going  lecturing:  at  least  not  for  a  vacation,"  he  writes  to 
Constance  on  June  6,  1891 .  "I  have  consented,  as  the  shop-girls  say  when 
they  are  fired  out  of  one  situation  and  find  another  after  much  importu 
nity,  to  accept  a  few  invitations  to  deliver  addresses  at  summer  Chau 
tauqua  assemblies,  as  Plato  and  Socrates  used  to  do  at  Athens  and  else 
where:  one  near  Washington;  one,  July  4th,  in  Nebraska;  one,  July 
1 6th,  in  Iowa;  one  July  aoth,  at  Madison,  Wisconsin;  one  at  Staten  Island, 
near  New  York;  and,  possibly,  one  at  Atlanta,  Georgia,  early  in  August, 
after  which  I  shall  sit  under  my  own  vine  and  fig-tree  for  awhile  and 
commune  with  Nature." 

This  serves  to  show  what  demand  there  was  for  his  literary 
talent,  and  is  an  example  of  what  followed  for  eight  years, 
until  his  health  failed. 

After  the  senatorial  election  of  1891,  he  gave  up  all  thought 
of  public  office.  For  his  party  he  had  hoped  to  be  returned  to 
the  Senate,  but  for  himself  he  was  glad  of  the  opportunity  to 
cast  away  forever  the  cares  of  public  life.  They  had  come  to 
be  a  grievous  burden ;  indeed,  they  were  ever  irksome  to  him. 
Never  after  his  defeat  was  he  an  aspirant  for  any  office  what 
ever,  and  there  was  not  one  he  could  have  been  induced  to 
accept.  His  desire  to  enjoy  the  peace  and  pleasures  of  home 
and  the  unbroken  companionship  of  his  loving  and  devoted 

56 


MEMOIR.  57 

family,  had  long  been  an  aspiration  which  seemed  likely  never 
to  be  realized.  While  the  Nation  stood  disappointed  at  his 
defeat,  he  returned  to  his  home  and  the  joys  it  held  for  him, 
rejoicing  that  he  was  nevermore  to  be  vexed  by  the  cares  of 
office  and  the  importunities  of  politicians. 

Once,  in  the  prime  of  his  vigor,  he  wrote  to  his  wife : 

"  Life  to  me  is  so  vivid,  so  intense,  like  an  eager  flame,  that  pain, 
disease,  weakness,  annihilation  seem  monstrous  and  intolerable." 

Early  in  June  of  1900  he  wrote  to  his  daughter  Marion,  from 
Las  Vegas,  New  Mexico : 

"I  was  sorry  not  to  go  home  last  Sunday  with  Sheffield;  but  we  held 
a  council  of  war,  and  decided  that  1  had  better  try  the  air  and  altitude 
treatment  here  for  awhile.  I  am  desperately  tired  and  discouraged  and 
homesick.  Affectionately,  YOUR  PAPA." 

Forty  days  later  the  weariness  ended;  the  disouragement 
gave  place  to  peace;  the  homesickness  slipped  away  and  left 
him  at  rest.  With  Faith  and  Louisa,  whom  he  had  lost  in 
their  infancy ;  with  Addison  and  Ruth,  who  had  passed  away  in 
the  innocency  of  childhood;  and  with  the  beloved,  womanly 
daughter,  Constance,  whose  death  broke  his  heart,  he  too 
had  gone  to  begin  the  new  home-making  in  the  larger  life 
beyond  life. 

But  the  ruling  passion  was  strong  in  death.  Considera 
tion  for  those  about  him  marked  his  last  hours.  The  day 
before  he  died  he  insisted  that  Mrs.  Ingalls  attend  a  wedding 
ceremony  in  which  some  friends  at  the  hotel  plighted  their 
faith  to  the  end  of  life.  He  had  himself  expected  to  attend. 
His  one  remaining  hope  and  ambition  was  to  reach  home, 
to  die  there  and  in  Kansas.  His  wife  was  his  stay,  his  com 
fort,  his  sustaining  power,  in  whom  alone  he  found  sweet 
peace  in  this  world.  She  had  stood  in  the  breach  fighting 


58  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

death  and  shielding  her  beloved  day  by  day  and  night  after 
night.  But  death  is  inexorable,  and  all  the  ways  of  the 
world,  broad  though  they  seem,  converge  and  lead  finally 
to  a  narrow  passage  where  there  is  room  for  but  one  to  pass. 
Death  stands  just  beyond  this  fateful  portal.  He  is  visible 
in  all  his  hideous  terrors,  but  the  world  crowds  behind ;  there 
is  no  turning  back.  She  to  whom  he  believed  himself  joined 
for  eternity  walked  with  him  to  the  very  gate  and  would 
gladly  have  gone  on  to  save  him,  but  it  could  not  be.  An 
affectionate  farewell,  and  he  became  a  watcher  and  waiter 
for  her  who  held  his  life  in  -the  journey  through  this  world 
of  tribulation  and  sorrow.  Death  came  to  him  between 
midnight  and  day-dawn,  in  the  late  summer  season  of  the 
year,  and  just  before  he  had  reached  old  age — August  16,  1900. 

In  the  quiet  gloom  of  the  early  summer  morning  hours, 
like  a  tired  child  at  his  mother's  knees,  he  said  over  the  sweet 
and  simple  prayer  by  which  the  loving  Elder  Brother  of  all 
mankind  has  taught  us  to  come  into  the  presence  of  the 
Father,  and  with  an  ineffable  peace  written  on  his  face,  he 
fell  asleep. 

Two  days  later  his  body  was  laid  to  rest  in  the  cemetery 
at  Atchison. 

"  '  Life's  fitful  fever '  for  him  was  ended,  and  the  foolish  wrangle  of 
the  market  and  forum  was  closed ;  grass  healed  over  the  scar  which  his 
descent  into  the  bosom  of  the  earth  had  made,  and  the  carpet  of  the  infant 
became  the  blanket  of  the  dead." 

There  was  mourning  in  the  State  of  Kansas  when  the  wires 
quivered  with  the  message  of  the  end  of  Ingalls.  Then  by 
the  glow  of  history  and  reminiscence  it  began  to  dawn  upon 
the  mind  of  the  commonwealth  that  a  great  light  had  gone 
out;  that  he  who  in  the  dark  days  of  the  State's  adversity 


MEMOIR.  59 

had  maintained  her  glory  and  power  before  the  Nation  had 
himself  crossed  the  harbor  bar,  and  never,  never  may  we  look 
upon  his  like  again. 


CHAPTER   VIII. 

"My  library  was  dukedom  large  enough." 

The  student  of  human  nature  would  wish  for  a  clever  pen 
when  he  writes  of  this  ablest  son  of  Kansas,  and  the  lover 
of  literature  finds  a  delightful  task  in  the  consideration  of  the 
most  illustrious  phases  of  his  character.  The  print-shop  of 
public  opinion  sets  up  his  name  only  in  large  capitals  when 
the  mentality  of  the  man  is  put  into  type  for  history. 
"He  was  an  emperor  in  the  realm  of  expression." 

Beyond  the  senator  of  whom  we  have  written,  is  the  writer; 
and  above  and  beyond  that  is  the  man  himself. 

Ingalls  had  three  text-books:  nature,  humanity,  and  the 
dictionary.  The  first  two  gave  him  material  and  the  third 
furnished  him  with  implement  or  weapon  according  as  his 
work  was  pacific  or  belligerent. 

Ingalls  was  essentially  an  orator  and  a  rhetorician.  His 
whole  inclination  was  toward  a  literary  life.  Was  he  there 
fore  a  misfit  in  politics?  There  are  not  lacking  those  who 
mourn  that  he  did  not  devote  himself  to  literature.  It  is 
easy  enough  to  declare  that  a  man  has  been  a  success  or  a 
failure  in  any  field,  but  to  assert  that  he  would  have  been 
successful  somewhere  else  is  an  assurance  born  of  folly.  There 
is  not  an  over-production  of  literary  ability  to-day;  whoever 
possesses  it  in  a  marked  degree  is  assured  of  gracious  hear 
ing  and  an  influence,  especially  in  the  halls  of  Congress. 

Ingalls    was    formidable.       His    power    of    invective    was 

something    tremendous.     Before    his    fierce    words    an  enemy 

60 


MEMOIR.  6 1 

could  do  nothing  but  writhe.  Nobody  who  knew  him  ever 
walked  carelessly  or  insolently  on  his  preserves  without  re 
gretting  it.  Of  all  degrees  from  mild  ridicule  to  utter  anni 
hilation  he  was  a  cunning  master.  And  with  his  keenness 
and  originality  one  could  never  fore- judge  where  or  how  he 
would  launch  his  weapon. 

Ingalls'  mind  was  of  the  critical  type.  His  ideal  of  per 
fection  was  high.  His  sense  of  irregularity  and  of  incon 
gruity  was  keen.  He  was  a  born  critic.  No  man  who  has 
a  nice  discriminating  power  can  be  otherwise  than  critical. 
It  is  said  of  Ingalls  that  he  had  no  tolerance  for  a  fool,  no 
patience  with  mediocrity.  We  resent  the  authority  of  the 
man  who  sets  himself  in  judgment  over  us.  Yet  if  his  judg 
ment  be  accurate,  ours  may  be  the  profit,  nevertheless.  It 
is  not  impossible  that  the  man  from  Kansas  did  more  with  his 
criticism  than  the  optimist  could  do  in  smoothing  whitewash 
over  sepulchres  of  corruption.  Another  quality  of  this  noted 
mind  was  insight.  No  one  can  be  critical  without  insight, 
which  is  not  so  much  the  ability  to  discern  men's  motives  as 
the  appreciation  of  their  mental  methods  and  status.  He 
was  shrewd  in  knowing  people.  The  text-book  of  humanity 
he  read  on  sight.  Ingalls  was  a  Cassius  who  thought  much, 
was  a  great  observer,  and  looked  quite  through  the  deeds 
of  men.  It  was  in  the  nature  of  things,  too,  that  with  this 
critical  mind  he  should  be  satirical,  and  that  his  sense  of  humor 
should  have  an  almost  abnormal  development.  From  ridi 
cule  that  seared  like  white-hot  iron,  through  all  grades  of  sar 
casm  and  satire,  down  to  the  most  delightful  mirth,  his  hand 
played  all  the  keys.  Some  hint  of  a  sense  of  the  ludicrous 
cropped  out  perpetually.  In  his  letters  to  his  children,  how 
ever  brief,  a  smile  crept  in  between  the  lines. 


62  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Ingalls  had  an  innate  dignity  of  bearing,  and  dignity  of 
thought.  In  all  his  mental  output,  whether  invective,  or 
of  humor,  or  pathos,  whether  instructive  discourse  or  day 
dream  fancies,  there  was  nothing  of  the  coarse,  nor  of  the 
undignified  commonplace. 

Ingalls'  style  of  composition  was  marked  by  picturesque- 
ness,  originality,  and  magnificence.  It  had  in  it  a  blending 
of  Bacon  and  Addison,  of  Carlyle  and  Swift,  of  Shakespeare 
and  Tennyson.  Yet  it  was,  above  everything  else,  Ingalls' 
own  creation.  He  lived  so  much  in  the  realm  of  words  that 
he  came  to  the  mastery  over  them.  They  served  him  gladly, 
for  he  grasped  their  uses  and  their  potency.  His  pen  was 
the  stylus  of  the  cameo  artist,  the  chisel  of  the  sculptor,  the 
sabre  of  the  warrior,  the  arrow  of  the  gods. 

In  the  text-book  of  Nature,  John  James  Ingalls  read  the 
story  of  the  universe. 

He  loved  to  take  long  solitary  rides  on  horseback,  or  to 
ramble  alone  in  the  woods.  He  delighted  to  sit  hour  after 
hour  and  watch  the  shifting  light  and  shadow  on  the  great 
river  that  stretched  away  below  his  home  and  lost  itself  in 
the  distant  tangle  of  the  landscape.  The  rolling  prairie,  the 
wooded  ravines,  the  soft  hazy  skies  of  Kansas  were  to  him 
an  inspiration.  In  them  he  found  an  uplifting  sense  of  peace. 
They  gave  to  him,  as  their  faithful  lover,  the  benediction  of 
the  universe  and  the  hidden  tale  of  that  drama 

"That  is  still  unread 
In  the  manuscript  of  God." 

Ingalls  reveled  in  the  beautiful.  So  intense  was  his  fine 
appreciation  that  it  was  next  to  pain.  The  dull,  unthinking 
crowd  never  dream  of  the  struggle  in  the  mind  of  the  artist 
who  undertakes  to  realize  in  clay  or  color,  in  music  or  in 


MEMOIR.  63 

language,  the  fine  ideal  of  beauty  that  the  brain  has  created. 
When  a  man  sees  his  own  intense,  exclusive  thought  stand 
out  in  words,  when  listening  throngs  wait  for  their  utterance, 
when  the  resonance  of  their  tones,  the  ripple  of  their  music, 
the  beauty  of  their  figures,  and  the  force  of  their  truths  cling 
like  argument  to  the  soul  that  takes  hold  of  them — that  man 
has  the  power  of  human  mastery. 

And  here  was  the  realm  wherein  John  James  Ingalls  found 
himself — his  best  self.  Whether  or  not  it  was  the  only  work 
meant  for  him,  God  knows,  and  the  adjustment  of  results 
is  with  Him. 

Ingalls  had  a  prolific  mind.  He  had  the  gift  of  poetry 
in  moderate  degree.  Sometimes  the  measures  that  fell  from 
his  lips  were  pearls,  and  sometimes  toads  and  scorpions 
depending  altogether  on  the  purpose  whereunto  he  sent  them. 

His  magazine  articles,  his  fragmentary  bits  of  beauty  in 
one  or  another  form  of  the  country's  press,  his  splendid  ora 
tory,  covering  such  a  wide  field  of  thought,  all  tend  to  reveal 
the  compass  of  a  mind  that  knew  and  knew  how  it  knew. 
His  sayings  are  household  words.  His  figures  are  standards 
for  all  future  rhetoric.  His  conception  of  beauty  is  a  divine 
beneficent  gift  to  the  English-speaking  people. 

And  now  as  to  the  man  himself.  Kansans  do  not  pro 
fess  to  know  him,  but  they  never  doubt  that  he  knew  himself. 
In  this  distance  from  the  day  of  his  activity  certain  traits 
are  revealed. 

He  had  the  thrift  of  a  born  New  Englander.  With  all  of 
what  might  seem  a  drain  on  his  resources,  he  lived  in  mod 
erate  luxury  all  his  days,  and  left  a  competency  to  his  family 
by  bequest. 


64  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

He  had  to  a  degree  a  fraternal  spirit.  He  belonged  to 
the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  the  Loyal  Legion,  and  the 
Masonic  Order.  Fraternal  organizations  have,  like  other  so 
cial  institutions,  come  to  be  somewhat  of  business  proposi 
tions,  social  ladders,  and  political  and  personal  foundations 
to  power.  They  may  be  a  convenience,  a  benefit,  or  a  mere 
source  of  pleasure  to  their  members.  What  Mr.  Ingalls'  mo 
tive  was  in  belonging  can  only  be  guessed  at. 

Ingalls  was  called  cold,  unsympathetic,  unfeeling.  Yet  he 
was  to  the  inner  circle  none  of  these.  Is  it  not  clear  that 
the  man  who  is  reading  Nature  and  humanity,  and  who  from 
day  to  day  becomes  a  more  habitual  student,  cannot  pour 
out  his  soul  like  water?  He  never  failed  those  who  needed 
him.  Within  the  sphere  of  his  legitimate  love  he  moved  a 
genial,  tender,  thoughtful  spirit. 

His  intimate  friends  and  associates  were  always  of  the 
aristocracy  of  brain  and  merit.  With  these  he  felt  himself 
at  home.  No  man  in  Kansas  ever  lived  among  more  refined 
associations. 

He  was  a  critic,  and  he  hated  fraud  with  an  uncompro 
mising  hatred.  Some  of  his  bitterest  attacks  were  made 
on  shams  and  insincerity.  He  was  unsympathetic  here,  un 
sparing,  irresistible.  Perhaps  this  is  why  the  public  thought 
him  cold  and  indifferent. 

His  was  an  intensely  sensitive  nature.  He  must  have  suf 
fered  deeply  when  pain  and  grief  came  to  him.  As  deep,  too, 
was  his  joy  in  the  sunshine  of  existence.  In  January  of  1883 
he  wrote  to  his  wife: 

"I  have  a  little  funeral  oration  to  deliver  this  A.  M.  on  Ben  Hill,  and 
am  in  terror,  as  usual,  although  it  lies  written  out  on  my  desk  " 


MEMOIR.  65 

But  when  the  listening  Senate  heard  that  funeral  oration, 
it  never  dreamed  of  terror  in  the  gifted  speaker.  When  the 
press  of  the  Nation  copied  it  far  and  wide,  neither  editor  nor 
reader  guessed  of  the  terror  in  the  sensitive  spirit  of  the  author. 
Only  the  loving  wife  at  home  knew  that  he  had  gained  an 
other  victory,  and  the  price  with  which  it  was  bought.  We 
do  rarely 

"Think  when  the  strain  is  sung 

Till  a  thousand  hearts  are  stirred, 
What  life-drops  from  the  minstrel  wrung 
Have  gushed  with  every  word." 

John  James  Ingalls  was  not  a  Church-man,  and  not  a 
creed-man.  Must  the  world  offer  excuse  for  that?  Must  the 
Church  and  creed  sit  in  judgment  on  him  and  condemn  him 
to  where  the  fire  is  not  quenched  and  the  worm  does  not 
die?  An  irreligious  man,  whose  best  friends  were  the  noted 
ministers  of  the  gospel!  A  doubter,  who  depended  on  truth 
for  the  power  that  made  him  strong!  Fortunately,  the  think 
ing  mind  has  at  last  reached  the  resting-ground  of  belief,  that 
each  man's  problem  he  alone  can  solve.  The  magnificent, 
vindictive  Ingalls,  who  laughed  at  the  foibles  of  the  man- 
made  Church,  found  the  unseen  in  his  own  fashion,  trusted 
and  questioned  for  himself,  and  at  last,  when  his  life-drama 
ended,  he  could  say  in  the  faith:  ''Thine  is  the  kingdom,  and 
the  power,  and  the  glory,  for  ever.  Amen." 

Where,  after  all,  is  the  real  man?  Is  it  in  him  who  has 
the  gift  "the  applause  of  listening  senates  to  command"?  Is 
it  in  him  whose  business  bent  can  put  him  on  pleasant  and 
profitable  footing  with  the  kings  of  commerce?  Does  it  lie 
in  the  man  who  figures  before  the  crowd?  who  is  at  home 
on  the  stump,  in  the  prayer-meeting,  at  the  club,  on  the 


66  JOHN  JAMES  IXGALLS. 

street  corner?  A  man  may  be  any  or  all  of  these  and  pass 
for  one  of  Nature's  successes,  and  yet  to  those  who  know  him 
best,  who  must  meet  him  daily  and  hourly  at  his  meals,  in  his 
dressing-room,  in  his  study — morning,  noon,  and  night,  must 
see  him — he  may  be  a  rasping,  wearing  curse,  a  contemptible 
snob,  a  selfish,  heartless  wretch.  And  that  may  be  the  real 
mar.. 

There  was  a  Kansan  once,  the  real  man,  whose  fine  mind 
was  habitually  studious,  whose  sensitive  nature  was  tinged 
with  sweetness,  yet  with  a  humor  all-redeeming,  whose  won 
derful  ability  to  express  himself  "after  the  use  of  English 
in  straight- flung  words  and  few"  puts  him  into  classic  lit 
erature  forever,  who  dwelt  near  to  the  great  heart  of  Na 
ture,  and  loved  almost  to  worship  her  delicate  sweetness  and 
her  superb  magnificence ;  \vhose  heart  wras  kind  and  gentle ; 
who  lived  in  the  lives  of  his  home  and  made  them  radiant 
with  sunshine ;  who  was  modest  in  prosperity,  and  patient 
in  adversity;  who  studied  God  and  His  universe  after  the 
means  the  God  of  that  universe  had  given  to  him;  who  grew 
weary  one  day,  folded  his  tired  hands,  and  was  not,  for  God 
took  him. 

Then  the  real  man  who  was  king  of  his  own  household 
was  mourned  for  with  a  heart-breaking  sorrow.  Then  and 
now  for  all  the  future,  the  commonwealth  of  Kansas  bows 
reverently  to  his  memory,  and  with  pardonable  pride  her 
people  designate  him, 

JOHN  JAMES  IXGALLS, 

"WRITER,  ORATOR,  STATESMAN, 

THE  IDEAL  KAXSAX. 

WILLIAM  ELSEY  COXNELLEY. 


ALBERT  DEAN  RICHARDSON. 


The  tragic  death  of  Mr.  Richardson  two  years  ago,  famil 
iarized  the  Nation  with  the  chief  incidents  of  his  remark 
able  career:  his  humble  birth  in  a  farming  town  in  Massa 
chusetts  in  October,  1833;  ms  early  experiences  as  a  journal 
ist  in  Pittsburgh  and  Cincinnati;  his  brief  residence  in  Kansas 
and  Colorado;  his  eventful  wanderings  through  the  South 
west  as  a  correspondent  of  the  Eastern  press;  his  connection 
with  the  Tribune  during  the  war;  his  restless  journeyings 
across  the  continent  to  regain  health  hopelessly  shattered 
by  exposure  in  rebel  prisons;  his  final  ventures  in  the  field 
of  literature;  and  that  fatal  passion,  in  obedience  to  whose 
most  inexplicable  but  potential  sway  he  resolutely  went  to 
his  lamented  grave. 

I  delivered  letters  of  introduction  to  him  in  October,  1858, 
at  the  city  of  Sumner,  of  which  he  was  one  of  the  founders, 
and  where  he  was  then  living  with  his  estimable  wife  and 
their  attractive  children.  His  residence  was  one  of  the  con 
ventional  structures  of  the  period :  a  cottonwood  cabin  of  two 
rooms,  with  a  door  between  two  windows  in  the  end,  which 
was  converted  into  a  front  by  the  strange  architectural  device 
of  a  flimsy  square  of  weather-boards  intended  to  conceal  the 
gables.  It  was  situated  near  the  climax  of  the  vertical  "Ave 
nue"  that  led,  in  fancy,  from  the  imaginary  levee,  thronged 
with  an  ideal  commerce,  to  the  supposititious  palaces  of  her 

67 


68  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

merchant  princes,  reaching  in  pictorial  splendor  far  toward  the 
western  horizon. 

Those  who  remember  the  audacious  "Views"  of  their 
fungous  cities  with  which  the  Pilgrim  Fathers  of  Kansas, 
in  that  epoch  of  scrupulous  honesty,  were  accustomed  to 
beguile  the  dazzled  vision  of  the  emigrating  public,  can  readily 
appreciate  the  mingled  doubt  and  consternation  with  which 
I  gazed  on  that  picture  and  then  on  this  reality.  That  chro 
matic  triumph  of  lithographed  mendacity,  supplemented  by 
the  loquacious  embellishments  of  a  lively  adventurer  who 
has  been  laying  out  townsites  and  staking  off  corner  lots  for 
some  years  past  in  Tophet,  exhibited  a  scene  in  which  the 
attractions  of  art,  Nature,  science,  commerce,  and  religion 
were  artistically  blended.  Innumerable  drays  were  trans 
porting  from  a  fleet  of  gorgeous  steamboats,  vast  cargoes  of 
foreign  and  domestic  merchandise  over  Russ  pavements  to 
colossal  warehouses  of  brick  and  stone.  Dense  wide  streets 
of  elegant  residences  rose  with  gentle  ascent  from  the  shores 
of  the  tranquil  stream.  Numerous  parks,  decorated  with 
rare  trees,'  shrubbery,  and  fountains,  were  surrounded  with 
the  mansions  of  the  great  and  the  temples  of  their  devotion. 
The  adjacent  eminences  were  crowned  with  costly  piles  which 
wealth,  directed  by  intelligence  and  controlled  by  taste,  had 
erected  for  the  education  of  the  rising  generation  of  Sum- 
nerites.  The  only  shadow  upon  the  enchanting  landscape 
fell  from  the  clouds  of  smoke  that  poured  from  the  towering- 
shafts  of  her  acres  of  manufactories,  while  the  whole  circum 
ference  of  the  undulating  prairie  was  white  with  endless 
sinuous  trains  of  wagons,  slowly  moving  toward  the  mys 
terious  regions  of  the  farther  \Yest. 


ALBERT  DEAN  RICHARDSON,  69 

The  squalid  reality  from  which  the  magician  had  evoked 
this  marvelous  vision,  displayed  a  sordid  river,  with  crum 
bling  shores,  upon  which  the  boats  derisively  tolled  funeral 
bells  as  they  steamed  insolently  past  the  deserted  landing. 
An  eruption  of  wretched  hovels  seemed  to  have  broken  out 
incoherently  among  the  scrubby,  rocky  ravines  and  inacces 
sible  defiles  that  would  have  defied  the  daring  of  a  chamois- 
hunter  of  the  Alps.  An  indescribable  air  of  poverty  and 
dejection  pervaded  the  waning  population,  and  produced  in 
a  stranger  a  profound  impression  of  discrepancy  and  incon- 
gruousness  which  even  the  pensive  splendor  of  Indian  summer 
could  not  redeem  from  desolation  and  despair. 

Richardson  appreciated  the  situation.  He  read  the  de 
scending  scale  of  the  spiritual  thermometer,  and  listened  to 
the  unsophisticated  criticisms  of  the  occasion,  with  a  grave, 
quiet  sense  of  the  humorous  aspect  of  the  imposture,  which 
immediately  resulted  in  an  intimacy,  interrupted  only  with 
his  life. 

It  happened  to  be  an  election  day,  and  Richardson  was 
a  candidate  for  the  Territorial  Legislature.  His  success  was 
prevented  by  certain  local  jealousies,  and  he  never  after 
wards  solicited  the  suffrages  of  his  fellow-citizens.  The  fol 
lowing  winter  he  was  a  clerk  in  the  Lower  House,  partici 
pating  with  zest  in  the  temporary  removal  of  the  capital  from 
Lecompton  to  Lawrence,  and  the  diversified  scenes  of  the 
session  which  closed  with  the  repeal  of  the  "Bogus  Statutes" 
of  1855.  He  reported  with  great  vivacity  the  final  act  of 
the  drama,  in  which  one  copy  of  the  obnoxious  volume  was 
burned  at  night  in  front  of  the  old  Eldridge  House,  and  another 
forwarded  by  express  to  the  Governor  of  Missouri  with  the 


?o  JOHX  JAMES  IXGALLS. 

compliments  of  the  Legislature,  and  the  message  that  Kansas 
had  no  further  use  for  the  book. 

At  that  time  Richardson  was  about  twenty-five  years  of  age, 
and  in  the  prime  of  health  and  strength.  Rather  beneath  the 
ordinary  stature,  his  frame  was  stalwart  and  strongly  moulded. 
In  movement,  speech,  and  gesture,  he  exhibited  something 
of  lethargy  and  sluggishness  which  seemed  at  variance  with 
his  intellectual  activity.  His  complexion  was  light;  his  eyes 
blue  and  somewhat  evasive  in  expression ;  his  hair  and  close- 
cropped  beard  of  yellow  hue.  In  dress  he  was  plain  and  neat, 
but  indifferent  to  color  and  texture.  His  bearing  towards 
strangers  was  tinctured  by  a  certain  reserve,  which  arose 
partly  from  natural  diffidence  and  partly  from  an  acquired 
distrust  of  his  power  to  please.  Among  friends  and  familiar 
acquaintances  his  manners  were  dictated  by  kindly  impulses, 
but  lacked  the  polish  of  social  attrition.  To  his  intimates 
he  admitted  an  embarrassment  in  society  which  he  was  un 
able  to  conquer,  although  anxious  to  belong  to  the  guild  of 
finished  gentlemen.  His  tastes  were  frugal  and  abstemious. 
He  preferred  ease  to  ostentation,  and  desired  wealth  lor  com 
fort  rather  than  for  display.  His  circumstances  were  mod 
erate.  He  earned  a  comfortable  livelihood  by  his  correspond 
ence  with  Eastern  journals,  and  had  been  considerably  active 
in  politics.  He  yielded  to  the  contagion  of  town  lots  and 
wild  lands  in  different  parts  of  the  Territory,  and  pre-empted 
a  quarter-section  about  ten  miles  west  of  Atchison,  upon  which 
he  erected  the  customary  improvements,  which  he  was  accus 
tomed  to  describe  with  extreme  animation. 

His  literary  habits  were  characterized  by  great  industry. 
He  always  carried  a  blank-book  into  which  he  immediately 
copied  any  striking  line  or  couplet  of  poetry,  bright  expres- 


ALBERT  DEAN  RICHARDSON.  71 

sion,  witty  anecdote,  or  happy  illustration,  to  use  in  his  own 
labors.  In  a  scrap-book  he  preserved  copies  of  all  his  letters 
to  different  newspapers,  and  also  every  personal  notice  of 
himself  and  his  productions.  This  material  was  first  employed 
in  his  correspondence,  subsequently  appeared  in  the  compo 
sition  of  lectures,  and  was  finally  incorporated  into  his  pub 
lished  volumes. 

"Garnered  Sheaves,"  consisting  of  his  later  contributions 
to  the  magazines  of  the  day,  has  been  published  by  his  wid 
ow  since  his  death,  and  met  with  extensive  sale.  His  ear 
lier  works,  being  upon  popular  topics  popular!}'  treated,  had 
extraordinary  success,  the  circulation  of  his  "Field,  Dungeon, 
and  Escape"  reaching  above  one  hundred  thousand.  "Beyond 
the  Mississippi"  was  almost  equally  successful.  There  are 
probably  more  copies  of  it  in  Kansas  than  of  any  other  book 
except  the  Bible,  and  it  is  recognized  as  the  most  faithful 
delineation  of  Western  life  and  manners  that  has  ever  been 
written.  Without  system,  order,  or  coherence,  it  is  as  fasci 
nating  as  a  romance,  and  stimulates  like  a  poem.  It  pos 
sesses  the  charm  of  a  dictionary  or  cyclopedia  in  enabling 
the  reader  to  begin,  skip,  and  close  at  will.'  And  yet  it  would 
be  unjust  to  deny  that  its  merits  are  of  the  highest  order. 
The  future  historian,  dramatist,  romancer,  and  poet  of  Western 
life  will  find  it  an  inexhaustible  mine  of  the  most  valuable 
material.  Time  will  enhance  its  worth.  Had  the  colonists 
of  Virginia  and  Massachusetts  Bay  been  favored  with  such 
a  graphic  observer  of  the  men,  the  manners,  and  the  happen 
ings  of  their  infant  empire,  what  a  boon  it  would  have  been  to 
their  descendants  and  to  the  civilized  world!  If  old  Miles 
Standish,  Governor  Winthrop,  Captain  John  Smith,  and  Pow- 
hatan  had  passed  before  the  retina  of  Richardson,  history 


72  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

would  have  been  illustrated  with  photographs.  Its  dry  skel 
eton  of  facts  and  dates  would  have  been  draped  with  the 
habiliments  of  life.  Such  chronicles  show  us  men  and  things 
as  they  are  in  those  aspects  that  interest  us  most.  Had  there 
been  a  daily  newspaper  printed  at  Athens  in  the  days  of 
Pericles,  or  at  Rome  during  the  reign  of  Caesar,  a  single  copy 
would  give  us  a  clearer  insight  into  the  real  life  of  the  people, 
their  manners  and  customs,  their  habits,  their  culture,  their 
purposes,  than  all  the  acres  of  scholarly  history  that  have 
ever  been  written  from  Josephus  down.  But  this  book  of 
Richardson's  has  an  added  charm  in  the  free,  fresh  life 
of  which  it  preserves  the  fast-fading  features.  In  another 
generation  there  will  be  no  "West,"  no  wilderness,  no  frontier, 
to  stir  the  young  blood  of  that  era  with  its  profound  and 
subtle  intoxication;  no  new  States  to  beget;  no  deserts  to 
traverse;  no  fascinating  areas  where  men  can  escape  from 
the  revolting  trammels  of  civilization  and  congregate  with 
savage  delight.  The  enchantment  of  the  "Plains"  has  van 
ished  already.  The  exultation  of  those  solemn  solitudes, 
with  the  silent  journeys  by  day  and  the  lonely  camp  by  night, 
can  never  again  be  known  by  the  traveler,  whether  he  looks 
from  the  train  as  it  resistlessly  bears  him  onward,  or  sees  it 
as  it  rolls  roaring  by  on  its  track  from  the  Great  River  to  the 
Pacific  Sea.  The  aroma,  the  flavor  of  this  lost  life,  Richard 
son  has  measurably  preserved.  Much  of  its  power  is  doubt 
less  due  to  the  magician  of  memory  in  summoning  up  from 
"Time's  dark  backward  abyss"  the  phantoms  of  buried 
things;  but  with  due  allowance  for  all  that  the  reader  con 
tributes,  it  remains  and  will  probably  continue  to  be  the  most 
faithful  transcript  of  one  of  the  most  important  and  interest 
ing  epochs  in  modern  American  history. 


ALBERT  DEAN  RICHARDSON.  73 

The  impartial  and  vivid  observer  and  chronicler  of  im 
pressions  and  events  must  be  absolutely  devoid  of  genius. 
He  must  be  without  inspiration.  He  should  have  no  convic 
tions.  It  is  not  his  mission  either  to  convince  or  persuade. 
He  bears  the  same  relation  to  the  highest  intellectual  devel 
opment  that  Brady,  the  photographer,  bears  to  Church,  the 
painter. 

This  was  eminently  true  of  Richardson.  He  is  one  of 
the  finest  modern  illustrations  of  the  day-laborer  in  litera 
ture.  He  was  a  true  journeyman.  Letters  were  to  him  a 
trade.  He  wrote  because  he  could,  and  not  because  he  must. 
He  carefully  ascertained  what  the  people  were  interested 
to  know;  then  learned  all  he  could  upon  the  subjects,  and 
told  it  in  the  most  interesting  manner  at  his  command.  He 
judged  the  value  of  his  books  by  the  number  of  copies  sold, 
and  pursued  literature  because  it  was  a  profitable  vocation. 
He  believed  that  mind  was  a  certain  force  that  could  be  suc 
cessfully  exerted  in  any  direction  its  proprietor  desired.  In 
an  eminent  degree  he  possessed  the  New  England  qualities 
of  thrift,  shrewdness,  foresight,  and  calculation.  Purchasing 
land  in  five  counties  at  an  early  day,  he  studied  the  map 
so  well  that  every  acre  is  now  within  sound  of  the  whistle 
of  the  locomotive.  He  exercised  the  same  characteristics 
in  literature.  The  War,  The  West,  The  Watch,  whatever 
subject  he  discovered  to  be  near  the  head,  the  heart,  or  the 
pocket  of  man,  he  carefully  investigated,  note-book  in  hand, 
with  a  view  to  writing  something  that  would  sell. 

In  morals  he  was  governed  by  similar  motives.  He  had. 
no  unprofitable  vices.  His  ideas  were  those  of  a  man  of  the 
world.  His  friendships,  though  not  mercenary,  were  largely 
controlled  by  interest,  and  his  companions  frequently  found 


74  JOHN  JAMES  IXGALLS. 

their  good  things  said  in  conversation  subsequently  reap 
pearing  in  type  as  his  own.  He  used  his  friends  upon  all 
occasions  unhesitatingly.  "Without  being  strictly  candid  or 
sincere,  he  was  eminently  truthful,  and  believed  that  in  a 
worldly  way  virtue  was  its  own  reward. 

He  was  ambitious  of  success,  and  to  a  man  so  organized 
success  was  absolutely  certain.  His  earliest  aspiration  was 
to  be  on  the  staff  of  the  New  York  Tribune,  which  he  accom 
plished  when  its  attainment  seemed  almost  impossible.  Had 
he  lived,  he  would  have  achieved  his  highest  desires. 

He  probably  contributed  as  largely  as  any  journalist  of 
the  period  to  that  unparalleled  advertisement  which  for  so 
many  years  has  made  Kansas  the  focus  of  the  eyes  of  all 
readers  on  the  globe.  His  pen  and  tongue  were  never  weary 
of  eulogy.  Absorbed  in  the  vortex  of  New  York,  his  thoughts, 
hopes,  and  aspirations  reverted  hither  with  a  constant,  fervid 
devotion.  But  a  few  weeks  before  his  death  he  was  here, 
making  arrangements  for  an  estate  to  which  he  might  ulti 
mately  come  and  spend  the  autumn  of  his  years.  Had  he 
lived,  he  would  have  openly  resumed  the  allegiance  which 
he  never  relinquished  save  in  name. 

Kansas  exercised  the  same  fascination  over  him  that 
she  does  over  all  who  have  ever  yielded  to  her  spell.  There 
are  some  women  whom  to  have  once  loved  renders  it  impos 
sible  ever  to  love  again.  As  the  '  'gray  and  melancholy  main' ' 
to  the  sailor,  the  desert  to  the  Bedouin,  the  Alps  to  the  moun 
taineer,  so  is  Kansas  to  all  her  children. 

No  one  ever  felt  any  enthusiasm  about  Wisconsin,  or 
Indiana,  or  Michigan.  The  idea  is  preposterous.  It  is  im 
possible.  They  are  great,  prosperous  communities,  but  their  in 
habitants  can  remove  and  never  desire  to  return.  They  hunger 


ALBERT  DEAX  RICHARDSON.  75 

for  the  horizon.  They  make  new  homes  without  the  maladie 
du  pays.  But  no  genuine  Kansan  can  emigrate.  He  may 
wander.  He  may  roam.  He  may  travel.  He  may  go  else 
where,  but  no  other  State  can  claim  him  as  a  citizen.  Once 
naturalized,  the  allegiance  can  never  be  forsworn. 

Of  the  causes,  the  reasons,  the  occasion  of  his  death,  what 
v'an  be  said?  It  is  the  old  insoluble  sexual  problem  which 
does  so  confound  and  tangle  our  noblest  relations  here  that 
nothing  less  than  the  final  conflagration  can  purge  the  race 
of  the  dross  it  brings;  but  out  of  which  we  seem  to  be  ris 
ing  by  gradual  steps  into  a  purer  atmosphere.  Alan  slowly 
ascends  from  gregariousness  to  monogamy.  The  fidelity  of 
one  man  to  one  woman,  absolute,  in  spite  of  temptation  or 
death,  is  the  ultimate  ideal.  Constancy  is  yet  a  splendid 
dream,  but  the  very  power  to  entertain  it  is  an  irresistible 
prophecy  of  its  ultimate  realization.  It  is  the  tendency  of 
the  highest  and  purest  teachings  of  every  religion,  and  its 
accomplishment  would  be  the  perfection  of  the  race.  The 
nearer  it  is  attained  the  happier  the  individual,  the  better 
society.  Its  violation,  whether  in  accordance  with  law  or 
against  law,  is  uniformly  visited  with  punishment;  and  to 
human  judgment  it  seems  clear  that  had  Richardson  followed 
the  promptings  of  his  best  instincts,  he  might  have  avoided 
his  sombre  destiny.  But  he  has  passed  to  that  tribunal  from 
whose  verdict  there  is  no  appeal.  If  there  were  an  error, 
there  has  aho  been  solemn  expiation. 

"Wild  words  wander  here  and  there: 
God's  great  gift  of  speech  abused 
Makes  thy  memory  confused. 

But  let  them  rave! 
The   balm  cricket  carols  clear 
In  the  green  that  folds  thy  grave. 

Let   them   rave!" 


JOHN  BROWN'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY. 


Jn  the  November  number  of  the  Review  the  Rev.  David 
X.  Utter  moves  to  reverse  the  judgment  heretofore  rendered 
in  favor  of  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie,  alleging  that  Ralph 
Waldo  Emerson,  Henry  Thoreau,  Theodore  Parker,  and  other 
radical  Abolitionists,  the  makers  of  our  history  and  literature, 
the  trusted  leaders  of  the  North  in  the  war  for  the  Union, 
"a  company  of  men  and  women  whose  peers  did  not  exist 
in  America,"  conspired  to  impose  a  false  verdict  upon  man 
kind,  which  has  passed  into  the  encyclopedias  and  biograph 
ical  dictionaries,  and  been  accepted  as  true  by  the  civilized 
world. 

In  support  of  this  motion,  two  averments  are  made. 

First.  That  on  May  24,  1856,  in  the  night-time,  John  Brown 
slew,  or  caused  to  be  slain,  in  cold  blood  and  without  provo 
cation,  five  inoffensive  citizens  living  in  the  valley  of  Potta- 
watomie  Creek. 

Second.  That  on  August  30,  1856,  at  the  battle  of  Osawa 
tomie,  John  Brown  ran  away  to  save  his  life. 

Whereupon,  David  N.  Utter  demands  that  instead  of  fee 
ing  adjudged  a  hero,  patriot,  and  martyr,  John  Brown  shall 
hereafter  be  held  and  declared  to  have  been  a  felonious  pol 
troon,  an  impostor,  and  an  assassin. 

The  equity  of  history,  if  not  its  justice,  requires  that  every 
man  should  be  tried  by  the  standard  of  his  own  time,  in  the 

76 


JOHN  BROWN'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  77 

light  of  all  the  circumstances  that  surrounded  him,  and  judged 
by  the  avowed  purposes  and  final  results  of  his  whole  career. 
Tested  by  this  canon,  it  is  difficult  to  treat  this  performance 
of  David  N.  Utter  either  with  patience  or  respect.  The  vague 
and  puerile  generalizations  about  hero-worship  and  the  causes 
of  the  war ;  the  mild  ecclesiastical  sneer  at  New  England  and 
the  higher  law;  the  justification  of  slave-stealing;  the  utter 
ignorance  of  the  fundamental  facts  of  Kansas  history ;  the  ap 
proval  of  the  acts  of  the  Missourians  in  killing  Frederick  Brown 
and  burning  the  cabins  and  stealing  the  stock  of  the  other 
sons;  the  perversion  of  morals  in  declaring  that  the  Potta- 
watomie  massacre  could  be  sustained  if  its  results  had  been 
good,  and  so  foreseen  and  foretold ;  the  inconsistency  of  affirm 
ing  in  one  sentence  that  John  Brown  was  a  hero  in  1859,  an<^  m 
another  that  his  entire  public  career  is  to  be  utterly  condemned 
— all  these  produce  a  sensation  of  bewilderment,  and  were  it 
not  for  the  faint  flavor  of  the  conventicle  that  pervades  the 
paper,  would  create  the  impression  that  it  was  intended  as  a 
burlesque,  like  Archbishop  Whately's  "Historic  Doubts  Rela 
tive  to  Napoleon  Bonaparte,"  rather  than  as  a  serious  con 
tribution  to  modern  history.  When  he  concludes  by  declar 
ing  that  the  principles  of  John  Brown  were  those  of  the  Rus 
sian  Nihilists — "First  make  a  clean  sweep  of  the  present 
civilization,  and  let  the  future  build  what  it  can" — won 
der  becomes  mingled  with  compassion;  for  there  is  prob 
ably  no  other  intelligent  student  of  public  affairs  who  does 
not  know  that  the  Russian  Nihilists  demand  nothing  of  the 
Czar  but  a  liberal  constitutional  government.  However  detest 
able  their  methods,  they  do  not  aim  at  anarchy.  It  is  sel 
dom  that  an  author  reaches  the  felicity  of  being  misinformed 
upon  all  subjects  of  which  he  treats. 


78  JOHN  JAMES  IXGALLS. 

John  Brown  was  boYn  at  Torrington,  Conn.,  May  9,  iSoo. 
He  was  descended  in  the  sixth  generation  from  Peter  Brown, 
an  English  carpenter,  who  signed  the  compact  in  the  cabin 
of  the  M-iy flower,  and  died  in  1633.  When  five  years  old, 
John  Brown  was  taken  to  Ohio.  His  youth  was  uneventful 
and  obscure.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  went  to  Massachu 
setts  with  the  design  of  obtaining  a  collegiate  education  and 
entering  the  ministry;  but,  being  attacked  with  a  disorder 
of  the  eyes,  was  compelled  to  abandon  this  purpose  and 
return  to  Ohio.  In  early  manhood  he  was  a  surveyor,  and 
traversed  the  forests  of  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia.  Later, 
he  was  for  ten  years  engaged  in  business  in  Pennsylvania, 
and  subsequently  in  Ohio  as  a  tanner,  a  cattle-dealer,  and 
speculator  in  real  estate.  In  1846  he  removed  with  his  fam 
ily  to  Springfield,  Mass.,  and  dealt  in  wool  as  a  commission 
merchant,  without  success.  In  1849  he  went  to  North  Elba, 
New  York,  where  he  toiled  upon  a  sterile,  rocky  farm  among 
the  Adirondacks,  and  where  his  body  now  lies  moldering  in 
the  grave.  As  early  as  1839  he  had  formed  the  great  life- 
purpose,  which  he  never  relinquished,  for  the  destruction  of 
African  slavery.  Thenceforward  there  was  no  divergence 
in  his  career.  He  was  not  distracted  by  ambition,  nor 
wealth,  nor  ease,  nor  fame.  He  never  hesitated.  Delay  did 
not  baffle  nor  disconcert  him,  nor  discomfiture  render  him 
despondent.  His  tenacity  of  purpose  was  inexorable.  Those 
relations,  possessions,  and  pursuits  which  to  most  men  are 
the  chief  objects  of  existence — home,  friends,  fortune,  estate, 
power — to  him  were  the  most  insignificant  incidents.  He  re 
garded  them  as  trivial,  unimportant,  and  wholly  subsidiary 
to  the  accomplishment  of  the  great  mission  for  which  he  had 
been  sent  upon  earth.  His  love  of  justice  was  an  irresistible 


JOHN  BROWN'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  79 

passion,  and  slavery  the  accident  that  summoned  all  his  powers 
into  dauntless  and  strenuous  activity. 

In  the  autumn  of  1854  four  sons  and  a  son-in-law  of  John 
Brown  joined  the  column  of  emigrants  that  marched  to 
Kansas.  They  were  farmers.  They  were  peaceable,  God 
fearing  men.  They  had  no  means  of  subsistence  except  the 
labor  of  their  hands.  They  were  unarmed,  but  they  hated 
slavery,  and  believed  that  Kansas  should  be  free.  They  set 
tled  near  Pottawatomie  Creek,  built  humble  cabins,  and  began 
to  cultivate  the  soil.  They  were  harassed,  insulted,  raided* 
and  plundered  by  gangs  of  marauders,  and  finally  notified  to 
leave  the  Territory  under  penalty  of  death.  They  associated 
for  defense,  and,  unable  longer  to  continue  the  unequal  con 
test,  in  the  summer  of  1855  they  wrote  their  father  to  procure 
and  to  bring  to  Kansas  arms,  to  enable  them  to  protect  their 
lives  and  property.  He  arrived,  after  a  tedious  journey, 
through  Illinois  and  Iowa,  on  the  6th  of  October,  1855. 

David  N.  Utter  declares  that  John  Brown  was  a  "disturb 
ing  influence  in  Kansas  from  the  first,"  and  that  he  went 
to  the  Territory  "not  as  a  settler,  but  to  fight."  He  desig 
nates  him  as  an  extremist  and  revolutionist  who  belonged 
to  an  insignificant  party  that  was  led  by  newspaper  corre 
spondents  and  stipendiaries,  who  really  had  no  right  to  be 
in  the  Territory  at  all.  He  attempts  to  convey  the  impres 
sion  that,  prior  to  the  arrival  of  John  Brown,  there  were  no 
other  "disturbing  influences"  at  work;  that  although  there  had 
been  some  casual  differences  of  opinion  as  to  the  course  that 
should  be  pursued  with  regard  to  the  slave  code  adopted 
by  the  "Bogus  Legislature"  of  1855,  a  wise  and  moderate  pol 
icy  of  submission  prevailed.  The  days  were  halcyon.  It  was 
like  the  garden  of  Eden,  where,  in  pastoral  tranquillity,  the 


8o  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Adams  and  Eves  were  naming  the  beasts  and  cultivating  the 
fig-tree  whose  foliage  was  so  soon  to  be  unfortunately  more 
important  than  its  fruit.  Even  the  destruction  of  Lawrence 
is  dismissed  with  a  flippant  paragraph  as  scarcely  worthy 
of  notice.  "There  was  no  resistance,  and  nobody  was  killed 
except  by  accident,"  murmurs  the  placid  historian.  He  prob 
ably  considers  that  the  drunken  mob  of  eight  hundred  border 
ruffians  who  had  assembled  on  their  own  account,  as  he  says, 
to  wipe  out  the  Abolition  town,  went  to  the  Territory  as  "set 
tlers,"  and  not,  like  John  Brown,  "to  fight." 

They  were  not,  like  John  Brown,  "a  disturbing  influence." 
They  went  to  Kansas  "to  make  homes  and  build  a  State," 
and  so,  unlike  John  Brown,  their  voice  was  not  ' '  for  war. "  Like 
the  gentleman  described  by  Tacitus,  they  wanted  peace. 

There  was  no  trouble  till  John  Brown  came  with  his  per 
nicious  revolutionary  doctrines.  "The  pillage  and  the  burn 
ing  were  in  consequence  of  his  crimes,  and  for  the  whole 
he  deserves  censure  rather  than  praise,"  concludes  David  N. 
Utter,  \vho  calls  this  process  the  "revaluation  of  our  war 
heroes,"  and  "getting  at  the  exact  facts  in  every  case,  let 
them  be  what  they  may,"  for  the  benefit  of  the  younger 
generation,  who  do  not  love  truth  more,  but  need  heroes  less, 
than  the  men  of  twenty  years  ago,  in  the  language  of  this 
evangelical  iconoclast.  It  may  interest  the  younger  gener 
ation  to  hear  a  brief  account  of  what  occurred  in  the  inter 
val  between  July  2,  1855,  and  May  21,  1856,  over  which  this 
revaluer  of  heroes  skips  with  such  airy  levity. 

The  Legislature  was  elected  March  3oth  by  Missourians 
who  entered  the  Territory  in  armed  bands  for  that  purpose. 
Nearly  eight  hundred  attended  the  polls  at  Lawrence,  with 
pistols,  rifles,  Bowie-knives,  and  two  cannons,  loaded  with 


JOHN  BROWN'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  81 

musket-balls.  Both  branches  of  the  Legislature  were  unan 
imously  Pro-slavery  after  July  23d.  They  devised  a  scheme 
by  which  the  people  were  deprived  for  two  years  of  all  con 
trol  over  the  executive,  legislative,  and  judicial  departments  of 
the  Territorial  government.  They  filled  all  the  offices  with 
Pro-slavery  men,  and  adopted  an  act  to  punish  offenses  against 
slave  property  which  is  probably  the  most  infamous  stat 
ute  that  ever  blackened  the  code  of  any  civilized  people. 
It  aifixed  the  penalty  of  death  to  the  crime  of  carrying  or 
assisting  slaves  out  of  the  Territory  with  the  intent  to  pro 
cure  their  freedom,  and  punished  the  denial  of  the  right  to 
hold  slaves  with  imprisonment  at  hard  labor  for  two  years 
with  ball  and  chain. 

They  adjourned  August  3oth,  and  the  laws  were  published 
in  October.  The  Free  State  party  met  at  Big  Springs,  Septem 
ber  5th,  and  adopted,  among  other  resolutions,  the  following: 

"That  we  will  endure  and  submit  to  these  laws  no  longer  than  the  best 
interests  of  the  Territory  require,  as  the  least  of  two  evils,  and  will  resist 
them  to  a  bloody  issue  as  soon  as  we  ascertain  that  peaceable  remedies 
shall  fail  and  forcible  resistance  shall  furnish  any  reasonable  prospect  of 
success ;  and  that  in  the  meantime  we  recommend  to  our  friends  through 
out  the  Territory  the  organization  and  discipline  of  volunteer  companies 
and  the  procurement  and  preparation  of  arms." 

This  convention  was  followed  by  another  at  Topeka  on 
the  1 9th,  to  take  preliminary  steps  for  the  formation  of  a 
constitution.  Delegates  were  chosen  October  9th,  assem 
bled  on  the  23d,  and  adjourned  November  nth.  On  the 
1 4th  the  "Law  and  Order"  party  was  organized  at  Leaven- 
worth,  and  the  blood  of  Free  State  men  began  to  flow.  As 
early  as  May  these  friends  of  freedom  had  shaved,  tarred 
and  feathered,  ridden  on  a  rail,  and  sold  by  a  negro  auctioneer 
for  one  dollar,  William  Phillips,  who  had  ventured  to  pro- 


82  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

test  against  the  validity  of  an  election  in  Leaven  worth.  In 
August  they  subjected  Rev.  Pardee  Butler  to  great  personal 
indignity  at  Atchison,  and  set  him  adrift  down  the  Missouri 
on  a  log  raft,  because  he  refused  to  sign  some  resolutions 
adopted  at  a  Pro-slavery  meeting  held  in  that  town.  But 
these  mild  remedies  were  now  abandoned.  On  November 
2ist  Dow  was  killed.  Branson  was  arrested  for  taking  part 
in  a  meeting  held  to  denounce  the  murder.  He  was  rescued, 
and  the  sheriff  summoned  a  posse.  The  Governor  called 
upon  all  good  citizens  to  aid  in  Branson's  recapture.  The 
excitement  was  intense.  Armed  bands  crossed  the  Mis 
souri  and  hastened  to  their  rendezvous  at  Franklin,  under  the 
command  of  Atchison,  a  United  States  senator.  The  roads 
were  patrolled  and  wagons  robbed.  On  the  6th  of  December 
Barber  was  shot  while  traveling  homeward.  Companies  of 
Free  State  soldiers  marched  to  the  defense  of  the  beleaguered 
town  of  Lawrence.  Among  them  were  old  John  Brown  and 
his  four  sons,  equipped  for  battle.  A  spectator  says: 

"  They  drove  up  in  front  of  the  Free  State  Hotel,  standing  in  a  small 
lumber-wagon.  To  each  of  their  persons  was  strapped  a  short,  heavy 
broadsword.  Each  was  supplied  with  fire-arms  and  revolvers,  and  poles 
were  standing  endwise  around  the  wagon-box  with  fixed  bayonets,  point 
ing  upward." 

A  gaunt,  grim,  gray,  formidable  figure!  Evidently  he  was 
there  "not  as  a  settler,  but  to  fight"!  But  there  was  no 
fight.  Both  sides  regarded  discretion  as  the  better  part  of 
valor.  The  forces  were  disbanded,  and  John  Brown  and  his 
sons  drove  their  lumber-wagon,  with  their  broadswords,  guns, 
pistols,  and  pikes  to  their  cabins  on  the  Pottawatomie. 

The  election  under  the  Topeka  constitution  was  held  Janu 
ary  17,  1856.  The  next  morning  three  Free  State  men,  gc- 


JOHN  BROWN'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  83 

ing  home  from  Easton,  were  assailed  by  a  horde  of  ruffians. 
Captain  R.  P.  Brown,  a  member-elect  of  the  Legislature,  went 
to  their  relief  and  routed  the  assailants.  The  three  men,  with 
Captain  Brown,  continued  on  their  way  toward  Leavenworth, 
and  were  again  attacked  and  overpowered.  At  night  they 
were  all  released  but  Brown,  who  was  dragged  out,  hacked 
and  gashed  with  hatchets  and  knives,  thrown  into  a  wagon, 
exhausted,  bleeding,  benumbed  with  cold,  and  soon  expired. 

Other  murders  followed.    Governor  Shannon  said  that  "the 
roads  were  literally  strewed   with   dead   bodies."      The   Mis 
souri  River,  the  chief  highway  to  the  territory,   was  closed, 
and  steamers  were    searched    for  ammunition    and   supplies. 
In  April,  Major  Buford  arrived  with  large  reinforcements  from 
Georgia,    Alabama,   and   South   Carolina.       Efforts    to    arrest 
Free  State  men   were   continued   and   were   resisted.     United 
States  troops  were  sent  to  Lawrence  to  aid  the  civil  authori 
ties.     A  complacent  and  obsequious  grand  jury  was  assembled 
that  found  indictments  against  Governor  Robinson,  Reeder, 
and  others  for  high  treason,  because  they  had  participated  in 
the  Free  State  movement.     The  Governor  fled  from  the  Ter 
ritory  in  disguise ;  Robinson  was  arrested  while  en  route  to  the 
East,  and  brought  back  under  guard  for  trial.     The  district 
court  conceived  and  promulgated  the  extraordinary  doctrine 
of  "constructive  treason."       Anarchy   prevailed,   and   on  the 
morning  of  May  21,   1856,  a  deputy  United  States   marshal, 
with  an  immense  posse,  entered  Lawrence  and  arrested  a  large 
number  of  citizens  for  constructive  treason  and  for  bearing 
arms  against  the  "Government."     Later   in  the  day,  Sheriff 
Jones  appeared  with  an  armed  force  and  an  order  of  court  to 
destroy  as  nuisances,  two  newspaper  offices  and  the  Free  State 
Hotel.     A  demand  for  the  surrender  of   arms  was  complied 


84  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

with;  a  blood-red  banner  with  a  single  star  and  the  legend, 
"South  Carolina,"  was  unfurled.  The  printing  offices  were 
destroyed  and  the  material  thrown  in  the  river.  Four  cannon 
were  trained  on  the  hotel,  and  it  was  demolished.  The  day 
closed  with  the  pillage  of  stores  and  houses.  The  dwelling  of 
Governor  Robinson  was  burned,  and  night  was  hideous  with 
the  frenzied  orgy  of  the  drunken  and  triumphant  marauders. 
The  total  value  of  the  property  destroyed  was  about  two  hun 
dred  thousand  dollars. 

The  subjugation  of  Kansas  by  the  slave  power  now  appeared 
to  be  accomplished.  The  Free  State  leaders  were  in  prison; 
the  principal  towns  of  the  Territory  were  in  the  hands  of  the 
enemy.  This  was  the  result  of  the  ' '  wiser  and  more  moderate 
policy  of  submitting,"  which  David  N.  Utter  says  had  "all 
along  the  support  of  the  very  best  citizens,  even  the  most 
earnest  Abolitionists." 

It  is  not  necessary  now  to  discuss  the  wisdom  or  unwisdom 
of  the  policy  of  non-resistance  which  had  prevailed  to  this 
juncture  among  the  friends  of  freedom  in  Kansas.  Their  sit 
uation  was  difficult  and  delicate.  The  National  Administra 
tion  was  the  ally  of  their  insolent  and  brutal  foes  in  Mis 
souri  and  the  South.  Rival  ambitions  distracted  their  coun 
cils.  Many  of  the  colonists  from  Indiana,  Illinois,  and  other 
States  along  the  border,  although  opposed  to  slavery,  were 
equally  hostile  to  free  negroes,  and  insisted  that  they  should 
be  excluded  from  the  State.  Some  favored  immediate  eman 
cipation;  others  thought  slavery  should  not  be  disturbed 
where  it  existed.  Diplomacy  was  required  to  avoid  dissension. 
Passion,  violence,  and  retaliation  might  have  invoked  more 
irreparable  disasters,  though  nothing  could  have  much  retarded 
the  crisis  which  we  now  see  had  been  long  impending. 


JOHN  BROWN'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  85 

John  Brown  regarded  the  policy  as  nerveless  and  emascu 
lated.  It  became  soon  apparent  that  he  was  in  earnest.  His 
impatient  criticisms  upon  the  political  leaders  were  caustic 
and  intolerable.  He  was  not  a  politician,  and  wanted  no 
office.  He  had  no  sympathy  with  the  demand  that  Kansas 
should  be  a  free  white  State.  He  believed  in  the  fatherhood 
of  God  and  the  brotherhood  of  man. 

The  effect  of  the  destruction  of  Lawrence  was  instantane 
ous.  Emboldened  by  their  long  immunity,  the  Pro-slavery 
leaders  openly  avowed  the  policy  of  extermination,  and  called 
upon  their  followers,  in  the  chastely  picturesque  language  of 
the  Squatter  Sovereign  newspaper,  to  ' '  tar  and  feather,  drown, 
lynch,  and  hang  every  white-livered  Abolitionist  who  dares  to 
pollute  our  soil." 

The  company  to  which  John  Brown  and  his  sons  belonged 
had  marched  to  the  relief  of  Lawrence  on  the  2ist,  but,  learn 
ing  of  its  destruction,  had  camped  in  the  valley  of  Ottawa 
Creek,  several  miles  south.  The  next  day  Major  Williams,  a 
neighbor  and  friend  of  the  Browns,  rode  into  camp  and  told 
them  that  trouble  was  anticipated  on  the  Pottawatomie. 
'Squire  Morse  had  been  notified  to  leave  the  Territory  within 
three  days.  John  Grant,  Mr.  Winer,  and  several  others  in  the 
neighborhood  had  received  similar  notices  from  George  Wilson, 
the  probate  judge  of  the  county.  Judge  Hanway,  of  Lane, 
who  lived  near,  and  whose  death  occurred  recently,  says  the 
conspiracy  was  formed  to  "drive  out,  burn,  and  kill;  and  that 
Pottawatomie  Creek  was  to  be  cleared  of  every  man,  woman, 
and  child  who  was  for  Kansas  being  a  free  State." 

Among  the  most  active  and  resolute  of  these  "Law  and 
Order"  partisans  were  the  Doyles,  father  and  sons;  the 
brothers  William  and  Henry  Sherman,  Allen  Wilkinson,  and 


86  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

George  Wilson.  Wilkinson,  a  native  of  Tennessee,  was  post 
master  and  had  been  a  member  of  the  "Bogus  Legislature."  He 
was  a  violent  ruffian,  and  his  widow  remarked  to  Dr.  Gilpat- 
rick,  the  first  person  who  called  on  the  morning  after  his  death, 
that  she  had  often  urged  him  to  be  more  quiet  and  moderate  in 
his  language,  but  that  he  would  not  heed  her  advice.  When 
the  news  of  the  fall  of  Lawrence  arrived,  Henry  Sherman 
raised  a  red  flag  over  his  cabin,  and  announced  that  the  war 
had  begun.  Henry  was  an  amiable  person.  In  a  previous 
judicial  proceeeding  he  declared,  under  oath,  that  he  ''would 
rather  kill  that  old  man  who  wore  spectacles  and  lived  on  the 
hill  than  to  kill  a  rattlesnake."  The  object  of  his  animad 
version  was  the  Rev.  David  Baldwin,  long  afterward  resident 
at  Garnett,  in  an  adjoining  county. 

The  story  of  the  death  of  these  men  has  been  circumstan 
tially  told  by  James  Townsley,  who  accompanied  the  expedi 
tion,  and,  barring  some  tawdry  rhetoric,  is  fairly  repeated  by 
David  N.  Utter;  but  he  omits  to  add  what  Townsley  says  in 
his  statement  on  the  3d  of  August,  1882,  as  to  the  effect  of  the 
killing.  His  words  are : 

"I  became  and  am  satisfied  that  it  resulted  in  good  to  the  Free  State 
cause,  and  was  especially  beneficial  to  the  Free  State  settlers  on  Pottawa- 
tomie  Creek.  The  Pro-slavery  men  were  dreadfully  terrified,  and  large 
numbers  of  them  left  the  Territory.  It  was  afterward  said  that  one  Free 
State  man  could  scare  a  company  of  them." 

Judge  Hanway,  before  quoted,  says: 

"I  did  not  know  of  a  settler  of  '56  but  what  regarded  it  as  amongst 
the  most  fortunate  events  in  the  history  of  Kansas.  It  saved  the  lives  of 
the  Free  State  men  on  the  Creek,  and  those  who  did  the  act  were  looked 
upon  as  deliverers." 

One  of  the  most  eminent  of  the  Free  State  leaders,  who  is 
still  living,  writes: 


JOHN  BROWN'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  87- 

"He  was  the  only  man  who  comprehended  the  situation,  and  saw  the 
absolute  necessity  for  some  such  blow,  and  had  the  nerve  to  strike  it." 

Another  prominent  actor  writes: 

"I  wish  to  say  right  here  about  the  Pottawatomie  Creek  massacre, 
which  has  been  the  theme  of  so  much  magazine  literature,  that  at  the 
time  it  occurred  it  was  approved  by  myself  and  hundreds  of  others,  includ- 
the  most  prominent  of  the  leaders  among  the  Free  State  men. 

"It  was  one  of  the  stern,  merciless  necessities  of  the  times.  The  night 
it  was  done  I  was  but  a  few  miles  away  on  guard,  to  protect  from  destruc  - 
tion  the  homes  of  Free  State  men  and  their  families,  who  had  been  notified 
by  these  men  and  their  allies  to  leave  within  a  limited  time  or  forfeit  their 
lives  and  property.  The  women  and  children  dared  not  sleep  in  the 
houses,  and  were  hid  away  in  the  thickets.  Something  had  to  be  done,  and 
the  avenger  appeared,  and  the  doomed  men  perished — they  who  had 
doomed  others." 

It  was  the  "blood-and-iron"  prescription  of  Bismarck- 
The  Pro-slavery  butchers  of  Kansas  and  their  Missouri  confed 
erates  learned  that  it  was  no  longer  safe  to  kill.  They  discov 
ered,  at  last,  that  nothing  is  so  unprofitable  as  injustice.  They 
started  from  their  guilty  dream  to  find  before  them,  silent  and 
tardy,  but  inexorable  and  relentless,  with  uplifted  blade,  the 
awful  apparition  of  vengeance  and  retribution. 

When  John  Brown,  Jr.,  learned  of  the  massacre,  we  were 
informed  that  he  resigned  his  command  and  went  home,  where 
he  was  soon  after  arrested.  So  great  was  his  abhorrence  of  his 
father's  crime  that  he  became  insane,  and  during  his  ravings 
denounced  his  father  as  an  atrocious  criminal  and  unmiti 
gated  coward.  These  statements  are  made  upon  the  testi 
mony  of  G.  W.  Brown,  in  the  Herald  of  Freedom  in  1859.  The 
witness  may  be  competent,  but  he  is  not  disinterested.  He 
sustains  the  same  relation  to  the  anti-slavery  men  of  '56  that 
Judas  Iscariot  did  to  the  disciples,  and  is  as  well  qualified 
to  write  their  history  as  Judas  Iscariot  would  be  to  revise 
the  New  Testament.  John  Brown,  Jr.,  instead  of  being  "ar- 


SS  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

rested,"  was  captured  by  Captain  Pate,  manacled  with  ox- 
chains,  and  driven  under  a  hot  sun  till  he  became  delirious 
from  heat,  fatigue,  and  hunger.  He  wrote  many  letters  to 
his  father  while  in  captivity.  The  following  extracts  from 
one,  dated  September  8,  1856,  will  show  the  relations  that 
existed  between  them,  and  the  opinion  he  entertained  of  his 
father: 

"Dear  Father  and  Brother: 

«*  *  *  *  Having  before  heard  of  Frederick's  death,  and  that 
you  were  missing,  my  anxiety  on  your  account  has  been  most  intense. 
Though  my  dear  brother  I  shall  never  see  again  here,  yet  I  thank  God  you 
and  Jason  still  live.  Poor  Frederick  has  perished  in  a  good  cause,  the  suc 
cess  of  which  cause  I  trust  will  yet  bring  joy  to  millions.  *  *  *  * 

"I  can,  I  have  no  doubt,  succeed  in  making  my  escape  to  you  from 
here.  *  *  *  *  I  am  anxious  to  see  you  both,  in  order  to  perfect  some 
plan  of  escape,  in  case  it  should  appear  best.  Come  up  if  you  consistently 
can.  The  battle  of  Osawatomie  is  considered  here  as  the  great  fight  so 
far,  and,  considering  the  enemy's  loss,  it  is  certainly  a  great  victory  for  us 
— certainly  a  very  dear  burning  of  the  town  for  them.  *  *  *  * 
Everyone  I  hear  speaking  of  you  are  loud  in  your  praise.  The  Missou- 
rians  in  this  region  show  signs  of  great,  fear.  *  *  *  * 

"  Hoping  to  see  you  soon,  I  am,  as  ever, 

"  YOUR  AFFECTIONATE  SON  AND  BROTHER." 

The  effect  of  the  transaction  upon  Kansas,  according  to 
David  N.  Utter,  was  "only  evil,"  and  upon  the  career  of  John 
Brown  was  "pervasive,  decisive,  overwhelming,"  whatever 
that  may  mean.  He  could  not  live  in  Kansas,  continues 
the  veracious  chronicler,  nor  anywhere  else  safely,  so  he  dis 
guised  himself  by  cutting  off  his  beard  and  fled  to  New  Eng- 
Jand,  where  he  won  the  confidence  of  some  of  her  greatest  and 
.noblest  men;  after  which  he  hovered  on  the  border  of  two 
States,  waiting  for  a  signal  from  some  unknown  person  to  come 
over  to  Kansas  and  massacre  a  constitutional  convention. 
There  were  so  many  in  those  days  that  one  could  have  been 
killed  without  being  missed;  but  for  some  reason  the  plot 


JOHN  BROWN'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  89 

failed,  and  after  awhile  he  ventured  into  Kansas  again,  made 
a  raid  into  Missouri,  captured  some  slaves,  and  escorted  them 
to  Canada. 

This  reaches  the  true  dignity  of  history.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  John  Brown  did  live  many  months  in  Kansas  after  the 
Pottawatomie  slaughter.  He  participated  in  the  battles  at 
Franklin,  Battle  Mound,  Sugar  Creek,  Osawatomie,  and  Black 
Jack.  He  was  present  at  the  siege  of  Lawrence  in  September, 
and  soon  after  went  East  for  funds  and  arms.  He  lay  ill 
several  weeks  in  Iowa,  but  reached  Chicago  in  November. 
Early  in  1857  he  reached  Boston,  and  appeared  in  "disguise" 
before  the  Legislature,  asking  an  appropriation  of  ten  thou 
sand  dollars  to  defend  Northern  men  in  Kansas.  Later  in  the 
season  he  returned  to  the  Territory,  where  he  remained  with 
brief  intervals  of  absence  until  January,  1859,  organizing  his 
forces  for  the  final  crusade  against  slavery,  in  accordance  with 
plans  long  entertained  and  definitely  embodied  in  his  "Pro 
visional  Constitution,"  framed  at  Chatham,  Canada  West,  in 
May,  1858. 

In  December,  1858,  a  negro  from  Missouri  came  to  his  cabin 
on  the  Osage,  and  informed  him  that  he  was  about  to  be  sold, 
with  his  family,  and  begged  for  aid  to  escape.  John  Brown 
immediately  organized  two  companies,  invaded  Missouri,  lib 
erated  eleven  slaves,  and  returned  with  the  supplies  necessary 
for  their  support.  The  Governor  of  the  State  offered  three 
thousand  dollars  reward  for  the  arrest  of  John  Brown,  which 
the  President  of  the  United  States  supplemented  with  an  offer 
of  two  hundred  and  fifty  more.  John  Brown  retorted  by  a 
printed  proclamation,  offering  two  dollars  and  fifty  cents  for 
the  delivery  of  James  Buchanan  to  him  in  camp.  He  moved 
slowly  northward  with  his  four  families  of  emigrants,  colonized 


90  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

them  near  Windsor  in  Canada  in  March,  1859,  and  returned  to 
Kansas  no  more. 

His  subsequent  career  belongs  to  the  history  of  the  Nation. 
Out  of  the  portentous  and  menacing  cloud  of  anti-slavery  sen 
timent  that  had  long  brooded  with  sullen  discontent,  a  baleful 
meteor  above  the  North,  he  sprang  like  a  terrific  thunderbolt, 
whose  lurid  glare  illuminated  the  continent  with  its  devastating 
flame,  and  whose  reverberations  among  the  splintered  crags  of 
Harper's  Ferry  were  repeated  on  a  thousand  battle-fields  from 
Gettysburg  to  the  Gulf.  From  the  instant  that  shot  was  fired 
the  discussion  and  debate  of  centuries  was  at  an  end.  He  who 
was  not  for  slavery  was  against  it.  The  North  became  verte- 
brated,  and  the  age  of  cartilage  and  compromise  was  at  an  end. 
The  Nation  seized  the  standard  of  universal  emancipation 
which  dropped  from  his  dying  hand  on  the  scaffold  at  Charles - 
town,  and  bore  it  in  triumph  to  Appomattox. 

He  died  as  he  had  lived,  a  Puritan  of  the  Puritans.  There 
was  no  perturbation  in  his  serene  and  steadfast  soul.  Few 
productions  in  literature  are  more  remarkable  than  his  letters 
written  in  prison,  while  he  was  under  sentence  of  death.  He 
said: 

"I  can  trust  God  with  both  the  time  and  the  manner  of  my  death, 
believing,  as  I  now  do,  that  for  me  at  this  time  to  seal  my  testimony  for 
God  and  humanity  with  my  blood  will  do  vastly  more  toward  advancing 
the  cause  I  have  earnestly  endeavored  to  promote  than  all  I  have  done  in 
my  life  before." 

"As  I  believe  most  firmly  that  God  reigns,  I  cannot  believe  that  any 
thing  I  have  done,  suffered,  or  may  yet  suffer  will  be  lost  to  the  cause  of 
God  or  humanity;  and  before  I  began  my  work  at  Harper's  Ferry  I  felt 
assured  that,  in  the  worst  event,  it  would  certainly  pay." 

"I  am  quite  cheerful.  I  do  not  feel  myself  in  the  least  degraded  by  my 
imprisonment,  my  chains,  or  the  near  prospect  of  the  gallows.  Men  can 
not  imprison,  chain,  nor  hang  the  soul !  *  *  *  I  am  endeavoring 
to  get  ready  for  another  field  of  action,  where  no  defeat  befalls  the  truly 
brave." 


JOHN  BROWN'S  PLACE  IN  HISTORY.  91 

"It  is  a  great  comfort  to  feel  assured  that  I  am  permitted  to  die  for  a 
cause,  and  not  merely  to  pay  the  debt  of  Nature,  which  all  must.  I  feel 
myself  to  be  most  unworthy  of  so  great  distinction." 

"I  feel  just  as  content  to  die  for  God's  eternal  truth,  and  for  suffering 
humanity,  on  the  scaffold  as  in  any  other  way." 

"I  think  I  cannot  now  better  serve  the  cause  I  love  so  much  than  to 
die  for  it;  and  in  my  death  I  may  do  more  than  in  my  life." 

"I  do  not  believe  I  shall  deny  my  Lord  and  Master  Jesus  Christ,  and 
I  should  if  I  denied  my  principles  against  slavery." 

What  immortal  and  dauntless  courage  breathes  in  this  pro 
cession  of  stately  sentences;  what  fortitude;  what  patience; 
what  faith;  what  radiant  and  eternal  hope!  No  pagan  phil 
osopher,  no  Hebrew  prophet,  no  Christian  martyr,  ever  spoke 
in  loftier  and  more  heroic  strains  than  this  "coward  and  mur 
derer,"  who  declared  from  the  near  brink  of  an  ignominious 
grave  that  there  was  no  acquisition  so  splendid  as  moral 
purity;  no  inheritance  so  desirable  as  personal  liberty;  noth 
ing  on  this  earth  nor  in  the  world  to  come  so  valuable  as  the 
soul,  whatever  the  hue  of  its  habitation;  no  impulse  so  noble 
as  an  unconquerable  purpose  to  love  truth,  and  an  invincible 
determination  to  obey  God. 

Carlyle  says  that  when  any  great  change  in  human  society 
is  to  be  wrought,  God  raises  up  men  to  whom  that  change  is 
made  to  appear  as  the  one  thing  needful  and  absolutely  indis 
pensable.  Scholars,  orators,  poets,  philanthropists  play  their 
parts,  but  the  crisis  comes  at  last  through  some  one  who  is 
stigmatized  as  a  fanatic  by  his  contemporaries,  and  whom  the 
supporters  of  the  systems  he  assails  crucify  between  thieves  or 
gibbet  as  a  felon.  The  man  who  is  not  afraid  to  die  for  an  idea 
is  its  most  potential  and  convincing  advocate. 

Already  the  great  intellectual  leaders  of  the  movement  for 
the  abolition  of  slaverv  are  dead.  The  student  of  the  future 


92  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

will  exhume  their  orations,  arguments,  and  state  papers  as  a 
part  of  the  subterranean  history  of  the  epoch.  The  antiqua 
rian  will  dig  up  their  remains  from  the  alluvial  drift  of  the 
period,  and  construe  their  relations  to  the  great  events  in 
which  they  were  actors;  but  the  three  men  of  this  era  who  will 
loom  forever  against  the  remotest  horizon  of  time,  as  the  Pyra 
mids  above  the  voiceless  deserts,  or  mountain  peaks  over  the 
subordinate  plains,  are  Abraham  Lincoln,  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  and 
Old  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie. 


EULOGY. 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  SENATOR  HENRY  B.  ANTHONY,  OF 
RHODE  ISLAND. 


The  service  of  Senator  Anthony  in  this  body  exceeded  the 
entire  period  of  the  Republican  ascendency,  from  Lincoln  to 
Garfield — a  momentous  interval,  characterized  by  unprece 
dented  activity  of  the  material,  intellectual,  and  moral  ener 
gies  of  the  Nation,  and  resulting  in  structural  changes  in  gov 
ernment  and  society. 

It  was  an  epoch  of  tremendous  passions;  of  vague  and 
indefinite  morality;  of  frenzied  debate;  of  anomalous  states 
manship.  There  were  giants  in  those  days,  and  when  the 
Macaulay  of  another  age  shall  turn  to  rehearse  their  history, 
he  shall  find  little  in  our  recorded  annals  to  explain  the  remark 
able  and  long-continued  prominence  of  Senator  Anthony  in 
his  State  and  the  country,  or  the  extraordinary  influence  he 
exercised  upon  all  his  contemporaries. 

Without  the  learning  and  eloquence  of  Sumner,  the  logic  of 
Fessenden,  the  restless  industry  of  Wilson,  or  the  intense  and 
relentless  energy  of  Chandler  and  Morton,  he  was  the  trusted 
counselor  and  companion  of  all,  and^was  accorded  the  highest 
positions  of  ^confidence  and  honor  to  which  a  senator  can 
aspire. 

For Jtwenty-five^  years  Senator  Anthony  uttered  no  word 
in  debate  in  this  chamber  that  is  not  recorded,  but  how  faint 

93 


94  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

and  unsatisfactory  is  the  portrait  that  this  will  present  to  pos 
terity.  Those  who  recall  the  melody  of  his  diction  and  the 
dignity  of  his  delivery  will  always  wonder  with  regret  that  he 
so  seldom  spoke  who  spoke  so  well ;  but  no  printed  page  could 
record  the  gentle  and  benignant  courtesy  which  shone  in  hi? 
demeanor  and  lent  a  nameless  but  irresistible  charm  to  his 
deportment  and  bearing;  the  confident  courage  that  despised 
the  paltry  arts  and  hollow  clamors  of  the  demagogue;  the 
stainless  honor  that  knew  no  taint  of  perfidy  or  guile. 

He  was  a  minister  of  grace.  He  never  made  an  enemy 
and  never  lost  a. friend.  The  envy  that  might  have  been 
aroused  by  his  early  success  was  averted  by  the  sensitive 
delicacy  of  his  nature;  and  the  jealousy  that  might  have 
been  excited  by  his  long  supremacy  was  disarmed  by  his 
loyalty  to  his  friends,  by  his  fidelity  to  his  convictions,  by 
his  unsullied  integrity,  by  the  temperate  restraint  of  his 
spirit,  which  no  heat  of  controversy  could  disturb,  nor  any 
rancor  of  partisanship  provoke  to  retaliation  unworthy  of  a 
Christian  and  a  gentleman. 

The  entire  career  of  Senator  Anthony  was  one  of  unique 
and  singular  felicity.  For  him  fate  spared  its  irony.  Nem 
esis  was  propitiated.  Fortune  favored  him.  Time  denied 
him  none  of  those  possessions  that  are  regarded  as  the  chief 
requisites  of  human  happiness.  He  escaped  calumny,  and 
detraction  passed  him  by.  There  was  no  winter  in  his  years. 
He  had  length  of  days  without  infirmity.  His  ambition  was 
satisfied.  Honor,  health,  love,  friendship,  affluence,  which  so 
.often  with  capricious  disdain  elude  the  most  strenuous  pur 
suit,  attended  him  as  courtiers  surround  a  monarch.  His 
life  was  not  fragmentary  and  unfinished,  but  full-orbed  and 
complete.  Death  was  not  an  interruption,  but  a  climax. 


SENATOR  HENRY  B.  ANTHONY.  95 

His  sun  was  neither  obscured  nor  eclipsed,  but  followed  its 
appointed  path  to  the  western  horizon.  So  he  departed,  and 
above  his  spirit  and  fame  abides  the  enduring  covenant  of 
peace; 

"  His  memory,  like  a  cloudless  sky; 
His  conscience,  like  a  sea]at"rest." 


HAPPINESS. 


Happiness  is  an  endowment,  and  not  an  acquisition.  It 
depends  more  upon  temperament  and  disposition  than  envi 
ronment.  It  is  a  state  or  condition  of  mind,  and  not  a  com 
modity  to  be  bought  or  sold  in  the  market.  A  beggar  may  be 
happier  in  his  rags  than  a  king  in  his  purple.  Poverty  is  no 
more  incompatible|with  happiness  than  wealth,  and  the  inquiry, 
How  to  be  happy  though  poor?  implies  a  want  of  understand 
ing  of  the  conditions  upon  which  happiness  depends.  Dives 
was  not  happy  because  he  was  a  millionaire,  nor  Lazarus 
wretched  because  he  was  a  pauper.  There  is  a  quality  in  the 
soul  of  man  that  is  superior  to  circumstances  and  that  defies 
calamity  and  misfortune.  The  man  who  is  unhappy  when  he 
is  poor  would  be  unhappy  if  he  were  rich,  and  he  who  is  happy 
in  a  palace  in  Paris  would  be  happy  in  a  dug-out  on  the  frontier 
of  Dakota.  There  are  as  many  unhappy  rich  men  as  there 
are  unhappy  poor  men.  Every  heart  knows  its  own  bitter 
ness  and  its  own  joy.  Not  that  wealth  and  what  it  brings 
is  not  desirable — books,  travel,  leisure,  comfort,  the  best  food 
and  raiment,  agreeable  companionship — but  all  these  do  not 
necessarily  bring  happiness  and  may  coexist  with  the  deepest 
wretchedness,  while  adversity  and  penury,  exile  and  privation 
are  not  incompatible  with  the  loftiest  exaltation  of  the  soul. 

"More  true  joy  Marcellus  exiled  feels, 
Than  Caesar  with  a  Senate  at  his  heels." 


OPPORTUNITY. 


Master  of  human  destinies  am  I! 

Fame,  love  and  fortune  on  my  footsteps  wait. 
Cities  and  fields  I  walk;  I  penetrate 

Deserts  and  seas  remote,  and  passing  by 
Hovel  and  mart  and  palace,  soon  or  late 
I  knock  unbidden  once  at  every  gate  ! 

If  sleeping,  wake;  if  feasting,  rise  before 
I  turn  away.     It  is  the  hour  of  fate, 
And  they  who  follow  me  reach  every  state 
Mortals  desire,  and  conquer  every  foe 

Save  death;  but  those  who  doubt  or  hesitate, 
Condemned  to  failure,  penury  and  woe, 

Seek  me  in  vain  and  uselessly  implore. 

I  answer  not,  and  I  return  no  more  I 


97 


MY  SPRING  RESIDENCE. 


(Published  in  The  Williams  (College)  Quarterly,  June,  1855.) 

Build  me  a  pillared  Castle  in  the  Air 

Within  some  mountain's  purple  hollow,  scooped 

Upon  its  western  slope,  mid  forests  where 

The  clouds  are  anchored  and  the  pines  are  looped 
With  braided  gold  and  gloom. 

Drowse  it  with  murmured  hum  of  droning  bees 
And  sleepy  din  of  fountains  spouting  wine 

Whose  spray  shall  drown  the  sense  in  ecstasies 
And  wrap  the  air,  as  incense  from  a  shrine, 
In  faint  and  rare  perfume. 

Story  its  walls  with  pictures  seen  in  dream: 

The  loves  of  gods  and  wreathing  groups  of  maids 

With  slender  throats  and  hair  in  golden  stream  ; 
The  palpitating  hues  and  woven  shades 
From  sunset's  cloudy  loom. 

Carve  fluted  columns  zenith-high;  a  dome 

Of  Grecian  harmony,  and  capitals 
Remote  in  air  above  the  eagle's  home. 

Set  statues  upon  sculptured  pedestals 
Round  the  majestic  room. 

Let  mild-eyed  Shakspeare  sit  upon  the  throne, 
With  wild,  impetuous  Shelley  at  his  side; 

Then  he,  bv  Gorgon  critics  turned  to  stone, 
Who  felt,  long  summer  days  before  he  died, 
White  daises  on  his  tomb. 

Thrill  the  dumb  air  with  distant  music  poured 

Through  silver  tubes,  or  shaken  from  the  strings 
Of  melancholy  harps  to  the  accord 

Of  cataracts,  whose  water  leaps  and  sings 
Swift  through  a  rocky  Hume 
98 


MY  SPRING  RESIDENCE.  99 

Strew  me  a  couch  knee-deep  with  flowers  and  grass, 

With  cool  and  oozy  mosses  for  my  head. 
And  curtain  it  with  vines  whose  buds  are  stars, 

With  trailing  arbute  and  primroses  red 
Just  bursting  into  bloom. 

Gird  my  enchanted  valley  with  a  zone 

Of  snowy  summits  fading  to  the  sea, 
Lit  by  a  sun  which  like  an  opal-stone 

Glows  with  a  mild,  fantastic  brilliancy 
To  burn  but  not  consume. 

Through  the  blue  landscape,  leagues  remote  and  deep, 

A  glimmering  river  smiles  along  its  way 
As  a  bright  dream  flows  through  the  lands  of  sleep 

And  wastes  in  the  oblivious  sea  of  day 
Which  alien  skies  illume. 

Here  will  I  dwell  in  delicatest  rest, 

And  watch  the  clouds  that  paint  the  evening  sky, 

Or  slope  their  walls  of  gray  along  the  west 
And  march  afar  in  rainy  rhythm  by 

With  flame  and  sea-like  boom; 

Untwine  the  music  of  the  leaves  and  brooks 

And  let  the  world  neglected  thunder  on: 
What  recks  the  clutch  of  gold,  the  greed  of  books, 

The  scholar's  laurel  or  the  poet's  crown, 
The  victor's  sword  and  plume? 

A  life  of  calm  repose  and  liberal  ease 

Orbed  by  the  limits  of  impassioned  sense; 
A  life  of  summer  days  on  singing  seas, 
A  voyage  without  cause  or  consequence, 

Be  this  my  Godlike  doom! 
Golden  Hill,  1855. 


BLUE  GRASS. 


Attracted  by  the  bland  softness  of  an  afternoon  in  my 
primeval  winter  in  Kansas,  I  rode  southward  through  the 
dense  forest  that  then  covered  the  bluffs  of  the  North  Fork 
of  Wildcat.  The  ground  was  sodden  with  the  ooze  of  melt 
ing  snow.  The  dripping  trees  were  as  motionless  as  granite. 
The  last  year's  leaves,  tenacious  lingerers,  loath  to  leave 
the  scene  of  their  brief  bravery,  adhered  to  the  gray  boughs 
like  fragile  bronze.  There  were  no  visible  indications  of  life, 
but  the  broad,  wintry  landscape  was  flooded  with  that  inde 
scribable  splendor  that  never  was  on  sea  or  shore — a  purple 
and  silken  softness,  that  half  veiled,  half  disclosed  the  alien 
horizon,  the  vast  curves  of  the  remote  river,  the  transient 
architecture  of  the  clouds,  and  filled  the  responsive  soul  with 
a  vague  tumult  of  emotions,  pensive  and  pathetic,  in  which 
regret  and  hope  contended  for  the  mastery.  The  dead  and 
silent  globe,  with  all  its  hidden  kingdoms,  seemed  swimming 
like  a  bubble,  suspended  in  an  ethereal  solution  of  amethyst 
and  silver,  compounded  of  the  exhaling  whiteness  of  the 
snow,  the  descending  glory  of  the  sky.  A  tropical  atmos 
phere  brooded  upon  an  arctic  scene,  creating  the  strange 
spectacle  of  summer  in  winter,  June  in  January,  peculiar  to 
Kansas,  which  unseen  cannot  be  imagined,  but  once  seen  can 
never  [be  forgotten.  A  sudden  descent  into  the  sheltered 
valley  revealed  an  unexpected  crescent  of  dazzling  verdure, 


BLUE  GRASS.  101 

glittering  like  a  meadow  in  early  spring,  unreal  as  an  incan 
tation,  surprising  as  the  sea  to  the  soldiers  of  Xenophon  as 
they  stood  upon  the  shore  and  shouted,  "Thalatta!"  It  was 
Blue  Grass,  unknown  in  Eden,  the  final  triumph  of  Nature, 
reserved  to  compensate  her  favorite  offspring  in  the  new 
paradise  of  Kansas  for  the  loss  of  the  old  upon  the  banks  of 
the  Tigris  and  Euphrates. 

Next  in  importance  to  the  divine  profusion  of  water, 
light,  and  air,  those  three  great  physical  facts  which  render 
existence  possible,  may  be  reckoned  the  universal  benefi 
cence  of  grass.  Exaggerated  by  tropical  heats  and  vapors 
to  the  gigantic  cane  congested  with  its  saccharine  secretion, 
or  dwarfed  by  polar  rigors  to  the  fibrous  hair  of  northern 
solitudes,  embracing  between  these  extremes  the  maize  with 
its  resolute  pennons,  the  rice  plant  of  Southern  swamps,  the 
wheat,  rye,  barley,  oats,  and  other  cereals,  no  less  than  the 
humbler  verdure  of  hillside,  pasture,  and  prairie  in  the  tem 
perate  zone,  grass  is  the  most  widely  distributed  of  all  veg 
etable  beings,  and  is  at  once  the  type  of  our  life  and  the  emblem 
of  our  mortality.  Lying  in  the  sunshine  among  the  butter 
cups  and  dandelions  of  May,  scarcely  higher  in  intelligence 
than  the  minute  tenants  of  that  mimic  wilderness,  our  earli 
est  recollections  are  of  grass;  and  when  the  fitful  fever  is 
ended,  and  the  foolish  wrangle  of  the  market  and  forum  is 
closed,  grass  heals  over  the  scar  which  our  descent  into  the 
bosom  of  the  earth  has  made,  and  the  carpet  of  the  infant 
becomes  the  blanket  of  the  dead. 

As  he  reflected  upon  the  brevity  of  human  life,  grass  has 
been  the  favorite  symbol  of  the  moralist,  the  chosen  theme 
of  the  philosopher.  "All  flesh  is  grass,"  said  the  prophet; 
"My  days  are  as  the  grass,"  sighed  the  troubled  patriarch; 


102  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

and  the  pensive  Nebuchadnezzar,  in  his  penitential  moodr 
exceeded  even  these,  and,  as  the  sacred  historian  informs  us,, 
did  eat  grass  like  an  ox. 

Grass  is  the  forgiveness  of  Nature — her  constant  bene 
diction.  Fields  trampled  with  battle,  saturated  with  blood, 
torn  with  the  ruts  of  cannon,  grow  green  again  with  grass, 
and  carnage  is  forgotten.  Streets  abandoned  by  traffic  become 
grass-grown  like  rural  lanes,  and  are  obliterated.  Forests  de 
cay,  harvests  perish,  flowers  vanish,  but  grass  is  immortaL 
Beleaguered  by  the  sullen  hosts  of  winter,  it  withdraws  into 
the  impregnable  fortress  of  its  subterranean  vitality,  and 
emerges  upon  the  first  solicitation  of  spring.  Sown  by  the 
winds,  by  wandering  birds,  propagated  by  the  subtle  hor 
ticulture  of  the  elements  which  are  its  ministers  and  servants,, 
it  softens  the  rude  outline  of  the  world.  Its  tenacious  fibres 
hold  the  earth  in  its  place,  and  prevent  its  soluble  compo 
nents  from  washing  into  the  wasting  sea.  It  invades  the  soli 
tude  of  deserts,  climbs  the  inaccessible  slopes  and  forbidding 
pinnacles  of  mountains,  modifies  climates,  and  determines  the 
history,  character,  and  destiny  of  nations.  Unobtrusive  and 
patient,  it  has  immortal  vigor  and  aggression.  Banished  from 
the  thoroughfare  and  the  field,  it  abides  its  time  to  return,  and 
when  vigilance  is  relaxed,  or  the  dynasty  has  perished,  it 
silently  resumes  the  throne  from  which  it  has  been  expelled, 
but  which  it  never  abdicates.  It  bears  no  blazonry  of  bloom 
to  charm  the  senses  with  fragrance  or  splendor,  but  its  homely 
hue  is  more  enchanting  than  the  lily  or  the  rose.  It  yields  no- 
fruit  in  earth  or  air,  and  yet  should  its  harvest  fail  for  a  single 
year,  famine  would  depopulate  the  world. 

One  grass  differs  from  another  grass  in  glory.  One  is 
vulgar  and  another  patrician.  There  are  grades  in  its  veg- 


BLUE  GRASS.  103 

etable  nobility.  Some  varieties  are  useful.  Some  are  beau 
tiful.  Others  combine  utility  and  ornament.  The  sour,  reedy- 
herbage  of  swamps  is  base-born.  Timothy  is  a  valuable  serv 
ant.  Redtop  and  clover  are  a  degree  higher  in  the  social  scale. 
But  the  king  of  them  all,  with  genuine  blood  royal,  is  Blue 
Grass.  Why  it  is  called  blue,  save  that  it  is  most  vividly  and 
intensely  green,  is  inexplicable;  but  had  its  unknown  priest 
baptized  it  with  all  the  hues  of  the  prism,  he  would  not  have 
changed  its  hereditary  title  to  imperial  superiority  over  all  its 
humbler  kin. 

Taine,  in  his  incomparable  history  of  English  literature, 
has  well  said  that  the  body  of  man  in  every  country  is  deeply 
rooted  in  the  soil  of  Nature.  He  might  properly  have  de 
clared  that  men  were  wholly  rooted  in  the  soil,  and  the  char 
acter  of  nations,  like  that  of  forests,  tubers,  and  grains,  is 
entirely  determined  by  the  climate  and  soil  in  which  they 
germinate.  Dogmas  grow  like  potatoes.  Creeds  and  carrots, 
catechisms  and  cabbages,  tenets  and  turnips,  religion  and  ruta 
bagas,  governments  and  grasses,  all  depend  upon  the  dew- 
point  and  the  thermal  range.  Give  the  philosopher  a  handful 
of  soil,  the  mean  annual  temperature  and  rainfall,  and  his  anal 
ysis  would  enable  him  to  predict  with  absolute  certainty  the 
characteristics  of  the  nation. 

Calvinism  transplanted  to  the  plains  of  the  Ganges  would 
perish  of  inanition.  Webster  is  as  much  an  indigenous  prod 
uct  of  New  England  as  its  granite  and  its  pines.  Napoleon 
was  possible  only  in  France;  Cromwell  in  England;  Christ, 
and  the  splendid  invention  of  immortality,  alone  in  Pales 
tine.  Moral  causes  and  qualities  exert  influences  far  beyond 
their  nativity,  and  ideas  are  transplanted  and  exported  to 
meet  the  temporary  requirements  of  the  tastes  or  necessities 


104  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS, 

of  man ;  as  we  see  exotic  palms  in  the  conservatories  of  Chats- 
worth,  russet  apples  at  Surinam,  and  oranges  in  Atchison. 
But  there  is  no  growth;  nothing  but  change  of  location.  The 
phenomena  of  politics  exhibit  the  operations  of  the  same  law. 
Contrast  the  enduring  fabric  of  our  federal  liberties  with  the 
abortive  struggles  of  Mexico  and  the  Central  American  repub 
lics.  The  tropics  are  inconsistent  with  democracy.  Tyranny 
is  alien  to  the  temperate  zone. 

The  direct  agency  upon  which  all  these  conditions  depend, 
and  through  which  these  forces  operate,  is  food.  Temper 
ature,  humidity,  soil,  sunlight,  electricity,  vital  force,  express 
themselves  primarily  in  vegetable  existence  that  furnishes 
the  basis  of  that  animal  life  which  yields  sustenance  to  the 
human  race.  What  a  man,  a  community,  a  nation  can  do, 
think,  suffer,  imagine,  or  achieve  depends  upon  what  it  eats. 
Bran-eaters  and  vegetarians  are  not  the  kings  of  men.  Rice 
and  potatoes  are  the  diet  of  slaves.  The  races  that  live  on 
beef  have  ruled  the  world;  and  the  better  the  beef  the  great 
er  the  deeds  they  have  done.  Mediaeval  Europe,  the  Van 
dals  and  Huns  and  Goths,  ate  the  wild  hog,  whose  brutal 
ferocity  was  repeated  in  their  truculent  valor,  and  whose 
loathsome  protoplasm  bore  the  same  relation  to  that  barbar 
ous  epoch  that  a  rosy  steak  from  a  short-horned  Durham 
does  to  the  civilization  of  the  nineteenth  century.  A  dim 
consciousness  of  the  intimate  connection  between  regimen  and 
religion  seems  to  have  dawned  upon  the  intellectual  horizon 
of  those  savage  tribes  who  eat  the  missionaries  which  a  mis 
guided  philanthropy  has  sent  to  save  their  souls  from  perdi 
tion.  A  wiser  charity  would  avail  itself  of  the  suggestions  of 
modern  science,  and  forward  potted  apostles,  desiccated  saints, 
and  canned  evangelists  directly  to  the  scene  of  their  labors 


BLUE  GRASS.  105 

among  these  hungering  pagans.  Some  clerical  Liebig  has  here 
an  opportunity  for  immediate  distinction. 

The  primary  form  of  food  is  grass.  Grass  feeds  the  ox: 
the  ox  nourishes  man:  man  dies  and  goes  to  grass  again; 
and  so  the  tide  of  life,  with  everlasting  repetition,  in  contin 
uous  circles,  moves  endlessly  on  and  upward,  and  in  more 
senses  than  one,  all  flesh  is  grass.  But  all  flesh  is  not  blue 
grass.  If  it  were,  the  devil's  occupation  would  be  gone. 

There  is  a  portion  of  Kentucky  known  as  the  ' '  Blue  Grass 
Region,"  and  it  is  safe  to  say  that  it  has  been  the  arena  of  the 
most  magnificent  intellectual  and  physical  development  that  has 
been  witnessed  among  men  or  animals  upon  the  American  con 
tinent,  or  perhaps  upon  the  whole  face  of  the  world.  In  cor- 
roboration  of  this  belief,  it  is  necessary  only  to  mention  Henry 
Clay,  the  orator,  and  the  horse  Lexington,  both  peerless,  electric, 
immortal.  The  ennobling  love  of  the  horse  has  extended  to  all 
other  races  of  animals.  Incomparable  herds  of  high-bred  cattle 
graze  the  tranquil  pastures ;  their  elevating  protoplasm  supply 
ing  a  finer  force  to  human  passion,  brain,  and  will.  Hog  art 
ists  devote  their  genius  to  shortening  the  snouts  and  swelling 
the  hams  of  their  grunting  brethren.  The  reflex  of  this  so 
licitude  appears  in  the  muscular,  athletic  vigor  of  the  men,  and 
the  voluptuous  beauty  of  the  women  who  inhabit  this  favored 
land.  Palaces,  temples,  forests,  peaceful  institutions,  social 
order,  spring  like  exhalations  from  the  congenial  soil. 

All  these  marvels  are  attributable  as  directly  to  the  poten 
tial  influence  of  blue  grass  as  day  and  night  to  the  revolution 
of  the  earth.  Eradicate  it,  substitute  for  it  the  scrawny 
herbage  of  impoverished  barrens,  and  in  a  single  generation 
man  and  beast  would  alike  degenerate  into  a  common  decay. 
And  herein  lies  the  fundamental  error  of  those  social  and 


106  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

moral  economists  who  attempt  to  ameliorate  the  condition 
of  the  degraded  orders  by  commencing  with  the  Bible,  the 
didactic  essay,  the  impassionel  appeal.  These  are  results, 
not  causes.  Education,  religion,  and  culture  are  conditions 
which  must  be  developed,  not  formulas  to  be  memorized. 
The  Decalogue  has  no  significance  to  a  Comanche,  and  the 
attempt  to  civilize  him  by  preaching  is  as  senseless  as  would 
be  the  effort  to  change  a  Texas  steer  into  a  Durham  by 
reading  Alexander's  Herd-book  in  the  cattle-pens  at  Wichita. 
The  creature  to  be  civilized  must  be  elevated  to  a  condition 
that  renders  civilization  possible.  To  secure  flavor  in  the 
grape,  color  in  the  rose,  we  do  not  go  to  the  apothecary  for 
his  essences,  or  to  the  painter  for  his  hues,  but  to  the  soul 
for  its  subtle  chemistry.  And  thus  the  wise  philanthropist 
will  work  from  within  outward,  and  employ  those  agencies 
which  render  necessities  less  exacting,  appetites  less  urgent,, 
the  nerves  more  sensitive,  the  brain  more  receptive,  and  the 
senses  and  the  muscles  more  ready  ministers  of  an  enlight 
ened  will.  Man  cannot  become  learned,  refined,  and  tolerant 
while  every  energy  of  body  and  soul  is  consumed  in  the  task 
of  wresting  a  bare  sustenance  from  a  penurious  soil;  neither 
can  woman  become  elegant  and  accomplished  when  every 
hour  of  every  day  in  every  year  is  spent  over  the  wash-tub 
and  the  frying-pan.  There  must  be  leisure,  competence,  and 
repose,  and  these  can  only  be  attained  where  the  results  of 
labor  are  abundant  and  secure. 

A  more  uninviting  field  for  the  utilitarian  cannot  be  imag 
ined  than  one  of  the  benighted  border  counties  of  Missouri, 
where  climate,  products,  labor,  and  tradition  have  conspired 
to  develop  a  race  of  hard-visaged  and  forbidding  ruffians,, 
exhibiting  a  grotesque  medley  of  all  the  vices  of  civilization. 


BLUE  GRASS.  107 

unaccompanied  even  by  the  negative  virtues  of  barbarism. 
To  these  fallen  angels  villainy  is  an  amusement,  crime  a  recre 
ation,  murder  a  pastime.  They  pursue  from  purpose  every 
object  that  should  be  shunned  by  instinct.  To  the  ignorance 
of  the  Indian  they  add  the  ferocity  of  the  wolf,  the  venom 
of  the  adder,  the  cowardice  of  the  slave.  The  contemplation 
of  their  deeds  would  convince  the  optimist  that  any  system 
of  morals  would  be  imperfect  that  did  not  include  a  hell  of 
the  largest  dimensions.  Their  continued  existence  is  a  stand 
ing  reproach  to  the  New  Testament,  to  the  doctrines  of  every 
apostle,  to  the  creed  of  every  church. 

But  even  this  degradation,  unspeakable  as  it  is,  arises  large 
ly  from  material  causes,  and  is  susceptible  of  relief.  In  the 
moral  pharmacy  there  is  an  antidote. 

The  salutary  panacea-  is  Blue  Grass. 

This  is  the  healing  catholicon,  the  strengthening  plaster,, 
the  verdant  cataplasm,  efficient  alike  in  the  Materia  Medica 
of  Nature  and  of  morals. 

Seed  the  country  down  to  blue  grass  and  the  reformation 
would  begin.  Such  a  change  must  be  gradual.  One  gen 
eration  would  not  witness  it,  but  three  would  see  it  accom 
plished.  The  first  symptom  would  be  an  undefined  uneasi 
ness  along  the  creeks,  in  the  rotten  eruption  of  cottonwood 
hovels  near  the  grist-mill  and  the  blacksmith's  shop  at  the 
fork  of  the  roads,  followed  by  a  "toting"  of  plunder  into  the 
"bow-dark"  wagon  and  an  exodus  for  "out  West."  A  sore- 
backed  mule  geared  to  a  spavined  sorrel,  or  a  dwarfish  yoke 
of  stunted  steers,  drag  the  creaking  wain  along  the  muddy 
roads,  accelerated  by  the  long-drawn  "Whoo-hoop-a-Haw-aw- 
aw!"  of  "Dad"  in  butternut-colored  homespun,  as  he  walks 
beside,  cracking  a  black-snake  with  a  detonation  like  a  Der- 


io8  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ringer.  "Mam"  and  half  a  score  of  rat-faced  children  peer 
from  the  chaos  within.  A  rough  coop  of  chickens,  a  split- 
bottom  "cheer,"  and  a  rusty  joint  of  pipe  depend  from  the 
rear,  as  the  dismal  procession  moves  westward,  and  is  lost 
in  the  confused  obscurity  of  the  extreme  frontier.  Some, 
too  poor  or  too  timid  to  emigrate,  would  remain  behind, 
contenting  themselves  with  a  sullen  revolt  against  the  census, 
the  alphabet,  the  multiplication  table,  and  the  penitentiary. 
Dwelling  upon  the  memory  of  past  felonies,  which  the  hang 
man  prevents  them  from  repeating,  they  clasp  hands  across 
the  bloody  chasm.  But  the  aspect  of  Nature  and  society 
would  gradually  change — fields  widen,  forests  increase;  fences 
are  straightened,  dwellings  painted,  schools  established.  It 
is  no  longer  disreputable  to  know  how  to  read  in  words  of 
one  syllable,  and  to  spell  one's  name.  The  knowledge  of 
the  use  of  soap  imperceptibly  extends.  The  hair,  which 
was  wont  to  hang  upon  the  shoulders,  is  shorn  as  high  as 
the  ears.  The  women  no  longer  ride  the  old  roan  "mar," 
smoking  a  cob-pipe,  with  a  blue  cotton  sun-bonnet  cocked 
over  the  left  eye,  but  assume  the  garb  of  the  milliner,  and 
come  to  the  store  with  their  eggs  and  butter  in  a  Jackson 
wagon.  Pistols  are  laid  aside.  Oaths  and  quarrels  are  less 
frequent.  Drunkenness  is  not  so  general,  and  the  indis 
criminate  use  of  illicit  whisky  partially  yields  to  the  peaceful 
lager  and  the  cheering  wine,  although  in  his  festive  hours 
the  true  son  of  the  soil  cannot  forbear  to  occasionally  kill  a 
teacher,  burn  a  school-house,  or  flay  a  negro,  by  way  of  face 
tious  recreation.  The  second  generation  would  probably  dis 
card  butternut  and  buttermilk,  and  adopt  the  diet  and  habit 
of  the  lower  classes  in  New  England.  The  third  might  not  be 


BLUE  GRASS.  109 

distinguishable,  without  close  inspection,  from  the  average 
American  gentleman. 

Kansas  has  no  such  moral  obstacles  to  surmount,  no  such 
degradation  to  overcome.  Her  career  commenced  upon  a 
high  grade,  and  her  course  has  been  constantly  upward;  but 
it  cannot  be  indefinitely  continued  on  prairie  grass.  This 
will  nourish  mustangs,  antelope,  Texas  cattle,  but  not  thor 
oughbreds.  It  is  the  product  of  an  uncultured  soil,  alter 
nately  burned  with  drought,  drenched  with  sudden  showers, 
and  frozen  with  the  rigors  of  savage  winters.  'Already  it  is 
deteriorating  under  influences  that  should  be  favorable  to 
its  improvement.  Armies  of  rank  weeds  have  invaded  its 
domain  in  the  neighborhood  of  our  chief  cities,  and  are  en 
croaching  upon  its  solitudes.  If  we  would  have  prosperity 
commensurate  with  our  opportunities,  we  must  look  to  Blue 
Grass.  It  will  raise  the  temperature,  increase  the  rainfall, 
improve  the  climate,  develop  a  higher  fauna  and  flora,  and 
consequently  a  loftier  attendant  .civilization. 

Every  portion  of  our  country  possesses  its  own  character 
istics,  as  specific  as  those  of  different  nations.  The  thrift 
and  industry  of  New  England,  the  haughty  indolence  of  the 
South,  the  volcanic  energy  of  the  West,  the  wild  life  of 
the  mining  regions  of  the  Rocky  Mountains  and  California — 
these  are  not  only  ideas  that  are  recognized,  but  they  have 
their  types  and  representatives  in  literature  and  art.  Boston 
and  New  York  are  not  more  unlike  than  Chicago  and  St. 
Louis,  and  Denver  and  San  Francisco  resemble  Paris  as  much 
as  any  of  their  American  sister  cities.  They  are  all  illustra 
tions  of  the  law  that  human  character  and  conduct  depend 
upon  physical  and  material  conditions. 


no  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

The  typical  Kansan  has  not  yet  appeared.  Our  population 
is  composed  of  more  alien  and  conflicting  elements  than  were 
-ever  assembled  under  one  political  organization,  each  mature, 
each  stimulated  to  abnormal  activity.  It  is  not  yet  fused 
and  welded  into  a  homogeneous  mass,  and  we  must  therefore 
consult  the  oracles  of  analogy  to  ascertain  in  what  garb 
our  coming  man  will  arrive.  His  lineaments  and  outline  will 
be  controlled  by  the  abode  we  fashion  and  the  food  we  prepare 
for  him  when  he  comes. 

Though  our  State  is  embryonic  and  foetal  at  present,  it 
is  not  difficult  to  perceive  certain  distinctive  features  indig 
enous  to  our  limits.  The  social  order  is  anomalous.  Our 
politics  have  been  exceptional,  violent,  personal,  convulsive. 
The  appetite  of  the  community  demands  the  stimulus  of 
revolution.  It  is  not  content  with  average  results  in  morals. 
It  hungers  for  excitement.  Its  favorite  apostles  and  proph 
ets  have  been  the  howling  dervishes  of  statesmanship  and 
religion.  Every  new  theory  seeks  Kansas  as  its  tentative 
point,  sure  of  partisans  and  disciples.  Our  life  is  intense  in 
every  expression.  We  pass  instantaneously  from  tremendous 
energy  to  the  most  inert  and  sluggish  torpor.  There  is  no 
golden  mean.  We  act  first  and  think  afterwards.  These  idio 
syncrasies  are  rapidly  becoming  typical,  and  unless  modified 
by  the  general  introduction  of  Blue  Grass,  may  be  rendered 
permanent.  Nature  is  inconstant  and  moulds  us  to  her  vary 
ing  moods. 

Kansas  is  all  antithesis.  It  is  the  land  of  extremes.  It 
is  the  hottest,  coldest,  dryest,  wettest,  thickest,  thinnest  coun 
try  of  the  world.  The  stranger  who  crossed  our  borders  for 
the  first  time  at  Wyandotte  and  traveled  by  rail  to  White 
Cloud  would  with  consternation  contrast  that  uninterrupted 


BLUE  GRASS.  1 1 1 

Sierra  of  rugose  and  oak-clad  crags  with  the  placid  prairies 
of  his  imagination.  Let  him  ride  along  the  spine  of  any  of 
those  lateral  "divides"  or  water-sheds  whose 

"Level  leagues  forsaken  lie, 
A  grassy  waste,  extending  to  the  sky," 

and  he  would  be  oppressed  by  the  same  melancholy  monotony 
which  broods  over  those  who  pursue  the  receding  horizon 
over  the  fluctuating  plains  of  the  sea.  And  let  his  discur- 
sion  be  whither  it  would,  if  he  listened  to  the  voice  of  experi 
ence,  he  would  not  start  upon  his  pilgrimage  at  any  season 
of  the  year  without  an  overcoat,  a  fan,  a  lightning-rod,  and 
an  umbrella. 

The  new-comer,  alarmed  by  the  traditions  of  "the  drought 
of  '60,"  when,  in  the  language  of  one  of  the  varnished  rhet 
oricians  of  that  epoch,  "acorns  were  used  for  food,  and  the 
bark  of  trees  for  clothing,"  views  with  terror  the  long  suc 
cession  of  dazzling  early  summer  days;  days  without  clouds 
and  nights  without  dew;  days  when  the  effulgent  sun  floods 
the  dome  with  fierce  and  blinding  radiance;  days  of  glittering 
leaves  and  burnished  blades  of  serried  ranks  of  corn;  days 
when  the  transparent  air,  purged  of  all  earthly  exhalation 
and  alloy,  seems  like  a  pure  powerful  lens,  revealing  a  remoter 
horizon  and  a  profounder  sky. 

But  his  apprehensions  are  relieved  by  the  unheralded 
appearance  of  a  cloud  no  bigger  than  a  man's  hand,  in  the 
northwest.  A  huge  bulk  of  purple  and  ebony  vapor,  pre 
ceded  by  a  surging  wave  of  pallid  smoke,  blots  out  the  sky. 
Birds  and  insects  disappear,  and  cattle  abruptly  stand  agazed. 
An  appalling  silence,  an  ominous  darkness,  fill  the  atmos 
phere.  A  continuous  roll  of  muffled  thunder,  increasing  in  vol- 


ii2  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ume,  shakes  the  solid  earth.  The  air  suddenly  grows  chill 
and  smells  like  an  unused  cellar.  A  fume  of  yellow  dust 
conceals  the  base  of  the  meteor.  The  jagged  scimitar  of  the 
lightning,  drawn  from  its  cloudy  scabbard,  is  brandished  for 
a  terrible  instant  in  the  abyss,  and  thrust  into  the  affrighted 
city,  with  a  crash  as  if  the  rafters  of  the  world  had  fallen. 
The  wind,  hitherto  concealed,  leaps  from  its  ambush  and 
lashes  the  earth  with  scourges  of  rain.  The  broken  cisterns 
of  the  clouds  can  hold  no  water,  and  rivers  run  in  the  atmos 
phere.  Dry  ravines  become  turbid  torrents,  bearing  cargoes 
of  drift  and  rubbish  on  their  swift  descent.  Confusion  and 
chaos  hold  undisputed  sway.  In  a  moment  the  turmoil  ceases. 
A  gray  veil  of  rain  stands  like  a  wall  of  granite  in  the  eastern 
sky.  The  trailing  bsmners  of  the  storm  hang  from  the  frail 
bastions.  The  routed  squadrons  of  mist,  gray  on  violet,  ter 
rified  fugitives,  precipitately  fly  beneath  the  triumphal  arch 
of  a  rainbow  whose  airy  and  insubstantial  glory  dies  with  the 
dying  sun. 

For  days  the  phenomenon  is  repeated.  Water  oozes  from 
the  air.  The  strands  of  rain  are  woven  with  the  inconstant 
sunbeam.  Reeds  and  sedges  grow  in  the  fields,  and  all  nature 
tends  to  fins,  web-feet,  and  amphibiousness. 

Oppressed  by  the  sedate  monotony  of  the  horizon,  -and 
tortured  by  the  alternating  hopes  and  fears  which  such  a 
climate  excites,  the  prairie-dweller  becomes  sombre  and  grave 
in  his  conversation  and  demeanor.  Upon  that  illimitable 
expanse,  and  beneath  that  silent  and  cloudless  sky,  mirth 
and  levity  are  impossible.  Meditation  becomes  habitual. 
Fortitude  and  persistence  succumb  under  the  careless  hus 
bandry  induced  by  the  generous  soil.  The  forests,  ledges, 
and  elevations  which  serve  to  identify  other  localities  and 


BLUE  GRASS.  113 

make  them  conspicuous  are  wanting  here.  Nature  furnishes 
farms  ready-made,  like  clothing  in  a  slop-shop,  and,  as  we 
relinquish  without  pain  what  we  acquire  without  toil,  the  den 
izen  has  no  local  attachments,  and  daunted  by  slight  obstacles, 
or  discontented  by  trivial  discomforts,  becomes  migratory  and 
follows  the  coyote  and  the  bison.  The  pure  stimulus  of  the 
air  brings'  his  nerves  into  unnatural  sensitiveness  and  activity. 
His  few  diseases  are  brief  and  fatal.  Rapid  evaporation  ab 
sorbs  the  juices  of  his  body,  and  he  grows  cachectic.  Hospi 
tality  is  formal.  Life  assumes  its  most  serious  aspect.  In 
religion  he  is  austere ;  in  debauchery,  violent  and  excessive,  but 
irregular. 

The  thoughtful  observer  cannot  fail  to  conclude  that  Kan 
sas  is  to  be  the  theatre  of  some  extraordinary  development  in 
the  future.  Our  history,  soil,  climate,  and  population  have 
all  been  exceptional,  and  they  all  point  to  an  anomalous  des 
tiny.  Our  position  is  focal.  Energy  accumulates  here.  Our 
material  advancement  indicates  a  concentration  of  force,  such 
as  no  State  in  its  infancy  has  ever  witnessed.  Every  citizen 
is  impressed  with  the  belief  that  he  has  a  special  mission  to 
perform.  Every  immigrant  immediately  catches  the  contagion 
and  sleeps  no  more.  He  rushes  to  the  frontier,  stakes  out  a 
town  without  an  inhabitant,  builds  a  hotel  without  a  guest, 
starts  a  newspaper  without  a  subscriber,  organizes  railroad 
companies  for  direct  connections  with  New  York,  San  Fran 
cisco,  Hudson's  Bay,  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  When  two  or 
three  are  gathered  together,  they  vote  a  million  dollars  of  10 
per  cent  bonds,  payable  in  London,  and  before  the  prairie-dogs 
have  had  time  to  secure  a  new  location,  the  bonds  are  sold,  loco 
motives  are  heard  screaming  in  the  distance,  a  strange  popula 
tion  assembles  from  the  four  quarters  of  the  globe,  and  an  impas- 


H4  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

sioned  orator  rises  in  the  next  State  convention  and  demands 
the  nomination  of  the  Honorable  Ajax  Agamemnon  of  Mara 
thon,  to  represent  that  ancient  constituency  in  the  halls  of  the 
national  Congress.  In  a  year,  or  a  month  it  may  be,  the  excite 
ment  subsides;  corner  lots  can  be  bought  for  less  than  the  price 
of  quarter-sections,  jimson- weeds  start  up  in  the  streets,  second 
hand  clothing  men  purchase  the  improvements  for  a  tenth  of 
their  cost,  and  the  volcano  breaks  out  in  some  other  part  of 
the  State. 

The  names  of  dead  Kansas  newspapers  outnumber  the  liv 
ing;  her  acts  of  incorporation  for  forgotten  cities,  towns,  rail 
roads,  ferries,  colleges,  cemeteries,  banks,  fill  ponderous  vol 
umes  ;  the  money  that  has  been  squandered  in  these  chimerical 
schemes  would  build  the  Capitol  of  polished  marble  and  cover 
its  dome  with  beaten  gold. 

But,  notwithstanding  this  random  and  spasmodic  activity, 
our  solid  progress  has  been  without  parallel.  No  community 
in  the  world  can  show  a  corresponding  advancement  in  the 
same  time  and  under  similar  circumstances.  Guided  by  reflec 
tion,  directed  by  prudence,  controlled  by  calm  reason,  upon 
what  higher  eminence  these  intense  forces  might  have  placed 
us  can  hardly  be  conjectured.  But  such  a  career,  however 
fortunate  it  might  have  been,  our  physical  surroundings  have 
rendered  impossible.  The  sudden  release  of  the  accumulated 
energy  so  long  imprisoned  in  the  useless  soil,  the  prodigious 
store  of  electricity  in  the  atmosphere,  and  the  resentment 
which  Nature  always  exhibits  at  the  invasion  of  her  soli 
tudes,  all  contributed  to  induce  a  social  disorder  as  intem 
perate  as  their  own.  But  an  improvement  in  our  physical 
conditions  is  already  perceptible.  The  introduction  of  the 
metals  in  domestic  and  agricultural  implements,  ^ewelry,  rail- 


BLUE  GRASS.  115 

roads,  and  telegraphs  has,  to  a  great  extent,  restored  the 
equilibrium,  and,  by  constantly  conducting  electricity  to  the 
earth,  prevents  local  congestion  and  a  recurrence  of  the  tem 
pests  and  tornadoes  of  the  early  days.  The  rains  which 
were  wont  to  run  from  the  trampled  pavement  of  the  sod 
suddenly  into  the  streams,  are  now  absorbed  into  the  cul 
tivated  soil,  and  gradually  restored  to  the  air  by  solar  evap 
oration,  making  the  alternation  of  the  seasons  less  violent, 
and  continued  droughts  less  probable.  Under  these  benign 
influences,  prairie  grass  is  disappearing.  The  various  breeds 
of  cattle,  hogs,  and  horses  are  improving.  The  culture  of 
orchards  and  vineyards  yields  more  certain  returns.  A  rich 
er,  healthier,  and  more  varied  diet  is  replacing  the  side- 
meat  and  corn-pone  of  antiquity.  Blue  grass  is  marching 
into  the  bowels  of  the  land  without  impediment.  Its  per 
ennial  verdure  already  clothes  the  bluffs  and  uplands  along 
the  streams,  its  spongy  sward  retaining  the  moisture  of  the 
earth,  preventing  the  annual  scarifications  by  fire,  promot 
ing  the  growth  of  forests,  and  elevating  the  nature  of  man. 

Supplementing  this  material  improvement  is  an  evident 
advance  in  manners  and  morals.  The  little  log  school-house 
is  replaced  by  magnificent  structures  furnished  with  every 
educational  appliance.  Churches  multiply.  The  commercial 
element  has  disappeared  from  politics.  The  intellectual  stand 
ard  of  the  press  has  advanced,  and  with  the  general  diffusion 
of  blue  grass,  we  may  reasonably  anticipate  a  career  of  unex 
ampled  and  enduring  prosperity. 

The  drama  has  opened  with  a  stately  procession  of  his 
toric  events.  No  ancient  issues  confuse  the  theme.  No  bu 
ried  nations  sleep  in  the  untainted  soil,  vexing  the  present 
with  their  phantoms,  retarding  progress  with  the  burden 


n6  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

of  their  outworn  creeds,  depressing  enthusiasm  by  the  silent 
reproof  of  their  mighty  achievements.  Heirs  of  the  greatest 
results  of  time,  we  are  emancipated  from  all  allegiance  to 
the  past.  Unencumbered  by  precedents,  we  stand  in  the 
vestibule  of  a  future  which  is  destined  to  disclose  upon  this 
arena  time's  noblest  offspring — the  perfected  flower  of  Amer 
ican  manhood. 


CATFISH  ARISTOCRACY, 


To  the  physical  geographer,  Kansas  presents  an  elevated,, 
treeless  plateau,  rising  with  imperceptible  gradation  west 
ward  toward  the  base  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  Its  area 
is  quadrangular,  with  regular  outlines,  except  upon  that  por 
tion  of  its  eastern  boundary  which  conforms  to  the  sinuosi 
ties  of  the  Missouri. 

The  withdrawal  of  the  ocean  beneath  which  this  terri 
tory  was  originally  submerged,  and  the  drainage  of  the  rains. 
and  melting  snows  that  subsequently  fell  upon  its  surface, 
practical!  v  bisected  this  parallelogram  with  a  central  water 
course  known  to  cheap  politicians  as  the  "Valley  of  the  Kaw," 
which,  with  its  numerous  affluents  from  either  side,  resem 
bles  the  spinal  cord  of  the  vertebrate,  with  its  lateral  nerves 
branching  ftom  the  cervix  at  \\  yandotte  to  the  coccyx  or  os 
sacrum  in  Colorado. 

Commencing  at  the  general  level  of  the  upland,  these  trib 
utaries  wear  deeper  and  wider  channels  through  the  friable  and 
incoherent  soil.  Their  gathered  volume,  with  sluggish  moment 
um,  crawls  reluctantly  eastward,  forming  the  Kansas  River, 
one  of  the  most  important  affluents  of  the  Missouri.  These 
streams  may  be  properly  characterized  as  amphibious,  or  com- 
posed  equally  of  land  and  water.  They  constitute  an  anomaly 
in  Nature,  being  too  shallow  for  navigation,  too  dense  for  a 
constant  beverage,  and  too  fluid  for  culture.  If  the  [catfish 


117 


n8  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

were  permanently  expelled,  and  proper  attention  given  to  sub 
soil  plowing  and  irrigation  in  dry  seasons,  they  would  eventu 
ally  become  the  garden-spots  of  the  world.  This  is  an  appro 
priate  field  for  legislative  action,  and  Congress  should  be  im 
mediately  memorialized  upon  the  subject. 

During  our  Territorial  history,  a  company  was  incorporated 
to  render  the  Kaw  navigable,  by  cutting  a  conduit  from  the 
Platte  to  the  headwaters  of  the  Republican,  and  thus  uniting 
the  two  rivers.  The  resolute  opposition  of  the  farmers  of 
Nebraska,  who  would  have  been  deprived  of  stock- water  by 
the  success  of  the  scheme,  prevented  the  consummation  of 
this  great  enterprise,  which  would  only  have  been  equalled  by 
the  Suez  Canal  in  its  effects  upon  the  commerce  of  the  world. 
But  the  present  Legislature  is  so  much  occupied  in  discussing 
the  one-term  principle,  in  discovering  who  received  the  most 
money  for  his  vote  at  the  election  of  the  last  senator,  and  in 
passing  resolutions  to  adjourn,  that  nothing  can  be  expected 
upon  the  irrigation  proposition  before  another  session. 

The  outer  limits  of  these  valleys  are  the  bluffs,  whose  sum 
mits  were  the  original  shores  of  the  rivers,  when  their  broad, 
shallow  currents  had  a  scarcely  perceptible  motion  toward  the 
Gulf  of  Mexico.  As  the  attrition  has  worn  deeper  and  deeper 
channels,  the  lateral  drainage  has  cut  narrow  and  precipitous 
defiles  through  the  bluffs,  giving  them  an  apparent  isolation, 
and  sculpturing  them  into  rugged  and  picturesque  outlines, 
waiting  only  to  be  crowned  with  castles  to  become  as  romantic 
as  the  banks  of  the  Rhine.  The  increased  moisture  of  soil  and 
atmosphere  preventing  the  annual  devastation  by  fire,  for 
ests  of  oak,  hickory,  and  other  deciduous  trees  have  gradu 
ally  clothed  the  slopes  and  ravines  of  the  hills  with  their  grace 
ful  garniture,  and  extended  a  short  distance  into  the  interior. 


CATFISH  ARISTOCRACY.  119 

The  length  of  time  required  for  the  accomplishment  of  these 
results  is  matter  of  surmise  and  conjecture.  Inasmuch  as  the 
waters  of  the  Missouri  now  flow  in  a  bed  at  least  one  hundred 
and  fifty  feet  lower  than  the  adjacent  level  of  the  prairie,  and 
have  cut  through  a  stratum  of  solid  limestone  not  less  than 
fifteen  feet  thick  in  their  descent,  it  is  probable  that  the  proc 
ess  must  have  commenced  previous  to  the  passage  of  the 
Nebraska  Bill  in  1854,  and  possibly  prior  to  the  affair  in  the 
Garden  of  Eden. 

The  degradation  of  the  hills  and  the  detritus  washed  down 
from  the  higher  regions  is  suspended  in  the  sordid  wave,  and 
deposited  along  the  margins  of  the  streams  at  the  base  of  the 
bluffs,  in  greater  or  lesser  crescents  of  muddy  sand,  whereso 
ever  the  capricious  current  permits  a  momentary  delay.  Born 
of  a  snag,  a  wreck,  an  adverse  gale,  a  sunken  floater,  anything 
that  can  afford  brief  lodgement  for  accumulation,  these  accre 
tions  may  dissolve  and  vanish  with  the  next  "rise,"  or  they 
may  mysteriously  elevate  themselves  above  the  level  of  the 
water,  give  root  to  wind-sown  willows,  cottonwoods,  elms,  and 
sycamores,  an  anonymous  growth  of  feculent  herbage  and  fes 
tering,  crawling  weeds,  but  never  a  bright  blade  of  wholesome 
grass,  a  lovely  bud  or  flower. 

•  Malarious  brakes  and  jungles  suddenly  exhale  from  the 
black  soil,  in  whose  loathsome  recesses  the  pools  of  pure 
rain  change  by  some  horrible  alchemy  into  green  ooze  and 
bubbly  slime,  breeding  reptiles  and  vermin  that  creep  and  fly, 
infecting  earth  and  air  with  their  venom,  fatal  alike  to  action 
and  repose.  Gigantic  parasites  smother  and  strangle  the 
huge  trunks  they  embrace,  turning  them  into  massive  col 
umns  of  verdure,  changing  into  a  crimson  like  that  of  blood 
when  smitten  by  the  frosts  of  October.  Pendulous,  leafless 


120  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

vines  dismally  sway  from  the  loftiest  trees  like  gallows  with 
out  their  tenants.  Deadly  vapors,  and  snaky,  revolting  odors, 
begotten  of  decay,  brood  in  the  perpetual  gloom. 

If  not  too  soon  undermined  by  the  insidious  chute  gnaw 
ing  at  its  foundation  of  quaking  quicksands,  this  foul  alluvion 
becomes  subject  to  local  government,  and,  under  a  mistaken 
idea  that  it  is  a  component  part  of  this  sure  and  firm-set  earth, 
is  surveyed  and  taxed.  Its  useless  forests  are  deadened,  and 
the  ruined  boles  stand  like  grizzly  phantoms  in  the  waste.  A 
zig-zag  pen  of  rotten  rails  creeps  round  a  hovel  of  decayed  logs 
with  mud-daubed  interstices  that  seems  to  spring  like  a  conge 
nial  exhalation  from  the  ground.  In  the  uncouth  but  appro 
priate  phraseology  of  its  denizens,  it  is  "cleared  bottom,"  and 
has  become  the  abode  of  the  catfish  aristocrat.  It  was  amid 
such  surroundings  that  I  first  met  Shang,  the  Grand  Duke  of 
this  order  of  nobility.  Thus  he  had  always  lived;  thus  his 
ancestors,  if  he  had  any ;  and  thus  he  and  his  successsors,  heirs, 
and  assigns  will  continue  to  live  till  education,  religion,  and 
development  shall  render  him  and  his  congeners  as  impossi 
ble  as  the  monsters  that  tore  each  other  in  the  period  of  the 
Jurassic  group. 

The  foes  of  Darwin  are  accustomed  to  assail  the  deductions 
of  that  impolite  philosopher  by  the  assertion  that  beings  are 
nowhere  found  in  transit  from  type  to  type,  either  among  the 
higher  or  lower  orders  of  existence.  In  their  efforts  to  escape 
the  irresistible  conclusion  that  their  own  immediate  ancestors 
were  monkeys  or  donkeys,  they  affirm  with  suspicious  plaus 
ibility  thatjf  this  process  of  evolution  were  constantly  pro 
ceeding,  we  should  somewhere  find  a  fish  with  feathers,  a  bird 
with  fins,  a  horse  with  horns,  or  a  man  with  unpared  claws  and 
a  prehensile  tail. 


CATFISH  ARISTOCRACY.  121 

These  high-prairie  logicians  who  thus  attempt  to  salve 
their  wounded  vanity  are  possibly  honest,  but  their  horizon 
is  narrow.  They  illustrate  the  errors  that  arise  from  imper 
fect  generalization,  based  upon  insufficient  data.  Reflection 
should  convince  them  that  they  had  seen  hogs  on  the  bench, 
asses  in  the  pulpit,  and  bores  in  every  relation  in  life ;  and  if 
they  would  descend  from  their  altitudes  to  the  dwellers  along 
the  creeks  and  upon  the  bottoms,  we  should  hear  no  more  of 
this  sophistical  argument.  In  Shang  they  would  find  that 
long-lost  brother,  "the  connecting  link  between  man  and  the 
gorilla." 

They  would  also  discover  additional  proof  of  another  sig 
nificant  fact,  interesting  not  less  in  physics  than  in  morals,  but 
indisputable  in  both,  that  vice,  degradation,  infamy,  ignor 
ance — all  the  conditions  that  tend  to  corrupt  and  debase  man 
kind — by  some  inexorable  law  of  their  being,  do  most  luxuri 
antly  thrive  and  flourish  on  low  and  level  lands,  the  shores 
of  rivers,  and  the  margins  of  gulfs  and  lakes  and  bays.  Sin 
gravitates  downward,  not  spiritually  alone,  but  materially  also. 
Nature  abhors  it.  She  throws  the  harlot  and  the  drunkard  in 
the  gutter.  She  moves  her  human  trash,  like  her  other  gar 
bage,  constantly  lower  and  lower,  till  it  is  consumed  in  central 
fires  or  purged  in  purifying  seas. 

Whatever  is  virtuous  and  lofty  in  thought,  sentiment, 
and  purpose,  we  irresistibly  associate  with  elevated  regions: 
mountain  summits  cleaving  the  zenith,  high  table-lands,  with 
clear  streams  and  glittering  atmosphere. 

"What  pleasure  dwells  in  height,  the  shepherd  sang, 
In  height  and  cold,  the  splendor  of  the  hills!" 

The  patriotism  of  mountaineers,  their  love  of  home,  integ 
rity,  religion,  fortitude,  are  proverbial.  The  history  of  Switz- 


122  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

erland  and  the  national  characteristics  of  its  inhabitants,  the 
hardy  virtues  of  the  farmers  of  New  England  and  the  peas 
antry  of  Northern  Europe,  are  in  vivid  contrast  with  the  name 
less  degradation  of  the  emasculated  myriads  that  swarm  upon 
the  alluvions  of  the  Ganges,  the  Missouri,  and  the  Nile. 

The  same  distinction  is  perceptible  within  the  narrow  range 
of  isolated  communities.  Business,  traffic,  manufactures,  what 
ever  enslaves  man  and  drags  him  down  to  the  level  of  his 
most  clamorous  necessities,  seek  low  grades;  while  the  church, 
the  school,  the  home,  crown  the  eminences  that  rise  above  the 
dust  and  smoke  of  this  dim  spot  which  men  call  earth. 

The  hell  of  theology  is  in  a  bottomless  pit,  a  profound  abyss ; 
while  the  evangelical  heaven  is  depicted  to  the  popular  fancy 
as  a  walled  and  castellated  city,  leaning  over  whose  comfort 
able  battlements  the  celestial  burghers  contemplate,  with 
complacent  security,  the  elaborate  contortions  of  their  less- 
favored  brethren  in  fuliginous  realms,  below. 

The  Esquimaux  could  not  exist  at  the  equator,  nor  the 
Hindoo  at  the  pole.  No  man  of  genius  or  power  in  letters, 
arts,  or  arms  has  ever  been  born  outside  of  a  narrow  zone  of 
mean  annual  temperature.  Whether  soil,  climate,  and  diet 
produce  their  own  peculiar  species  of  the  human  animal,  or 
whether,  being  created,  he  seeks  the  conditions  to  which  he  is 
specially  adapted,  is  a  matter  of  doubt,  but  the  fact  admits  of 
no  question.  The  most  cursory  observer  cannot  fail  to  notice 
the  difference,  even  in  the  same  township,  county,  or  State, 
between  the  farmers  who  live  in  bottoms  and  those  who  culti 
vate  the  prairie;  between  communities  that  congregate  un 
der  the  bluffs  and  those  that  dwell  upon  high  and  airy  sites ; 
between  the  catfish  aristocrat  and  the  Yankee.  Perhaps  the 
most  marked  and  ineradicable  outward  distinction  is  the  man- 


CATFISH  ARISTOCRACY.  123 

ner  in  which  they  respond  to  a  question  imperfectly  under 
stood.  The  one,  squirting  a  gourdful  of  tobacco  juice  into  the 
jimson- weeds,  with  a  prolonged,  rising  inflection,  drawls  out, 
"Whi-i-i-ich?"  The  other  stops  whittling,  or  lays  down  The 
Kansas  Magazine,  and  jerks  out,  "Haouw?" 

Beware  of  the  creature  that  says  "Which?"  and  shun  the 
vicinage  wherein  he  dwells!  He  builds  no  school-house.  He 
erects  no  church.  To  his  morals  the  Sabbath  is  unknown.  To 
his  intellect  the  alphabet  is  superfluous.  His  premises  have 
neither  barn,  nor  cellar,  nor  well.  His  crop  of  corn  stands  un- 
gathered  in  the  field.  •  He  "packs"  water  half  a  mile  from  the 
nearest  branch  or  spring.  His  perennial  diet  is  hog,  smoked 
and  salted  in  the  summer,  and  fresh  at  "killin'  time."  He 
delights  in  cracklins  and  spare-ribs.  Gnashing  his  tusks  upon 
the  impenetrable  mail  of  his  corn-dodger,  he  sighs  for  the  time 
of  "roas'n-eers."  He  has  a  weakness  for  "cowc umbers"  and 
"  watermerns" ;  but  when  he  soars  above  the  gross  needs  of  his 
common  nature  and  strives  to  prepare  a  feast  that  shall  rival 
the  banquets  of  Lucullus,  he  spreads  his  festive  cottonwood 
with  catfish  and  pawpaws. 

From  such  a  protoplasm,  or  physical  basis  of  life,  proceeds 
an  animal,  bifid,  long-haired,  unaccustomed  to  the  use  of  soap, 
without  conscience  or  right  reason,  gregarious  upon  bottom 
lands,  where  they  swarm  with  unimaginable  fecundity.  In 
time  of  peace  they  unanimously  vote  the  Democratic  ticket. 
During  the  war  they  became  guerrillas  and  bushwhackers  un 
der  Price,  Anderson,  and  Quantrell ;  assassins ;  thugs ;  poisoners 
of  wells ;  murderers  of  captive  women  and  children ;  sackers  of 
defenseless  towns;  house-burners;  horse-thieves;  perpetrators 
of  atrocities  that  would  make  the  blood  of  Sepoys  run  cold. 


124  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

The  catfish  aristocrat  is  pre-eminently  the  saloon-builder. 
Past  generations  and  perished  races  of  men  have  defied  obliv 
ion  by  the  enduring  structures  which  pride,  sorrow,  or  religion 
have  reared  to  perpetuate  the  virtues  of  the  living  or  the  mem 
ory  of  the  dead.  Ghizeh  has  its  pyramids;  Petra  its  temples; 
the  Middle  Ages  their  cathedrals;  Central  America  its  ruins; 
but  Pike  and  Posey  have  their  saloons,  where  the  patrician  of 
the  bottom  assembles  with  his  peers.  Gathered  around  a 
rusty  stove  choked  with  soggy  driftwood,  he  drinks  sod-corn 
from  a  tin  cup,  plays  "old  sledge"  upon  the  head  of  an  empty 
keg,  and  reels  home  at  nightfall,  yelling  through  the  timber, 
to  his  squalid  cabin. 

A  score  of  lean,  hungry  curs  pour  in  a  canine  cataract  over 
the  worm-fence  by  the  horse-block  as  their  master  approaches, 
baying  deep-mouthed  welcome,  filling  the  chambers  of  the  for 
ests  with  hoarse  reverberations,  mingled  with  an  explosion  of 
oaths  and  frantic  imprecations.  Snoring  the  night  away  in 
drunken  slumber  under  a  heap  of  gray  blankets,  he  crawls  into 
his  muddy  jeans  at  sun-up,  takes  a  gurgling  drink  from  a  flat 
black  bottle  stoppered  with  a  cob,  goes  to  the  log-pile  by  the 
front  door,  and  with  a  dull  ax  slabs  off  an  armful  of  green  cotton- 
wood  to  make  a  fire  for  breakfast,  which  consists  of  the  inevit 
able  "meat  and  bread"  and  a  decoction  of  coffee  burned  to 
charcoal  and  drank  without  milk  or  sugar.  Another  pull  at 
the  bottle,  a  few  grains  of  quinine  if  it  is  "ager"  day,  a  "chaw" 
of  navy,  and  the  repast  is  finished.  The  sweet  delights  of  home 
have  been  enjoyed,  and  the  spiritual  creature  goes  forth,  invig 
orated  for  the  struggle  of  life,  to  repeat  the  exploits  of  every 
yesterday  of  his  existence. 

I  have  heretofore  alluded  to  Shang  as  the  typical  grandee 
of  this  ichthyological  peerage.  Whence  he  derived  the  appel- 


CATFISH  ARISTOCRACY.  125 

lation  by  which  he  was  uniformly  known,  I  could  never  satis 
factorily  ascertain.  Whether  it  was  his  ancestral  title,  or 
merely  a  playful  pseudonym  bestowed  upon  him  by  some  famil 
iar  friend  in  affection's  most  endearing  hour,  was  never  dis 
closed.  Of  his  birth,  his  parentage,  his  antecedents,  it  were 
equally  vain  to  inquire.  He  was  unintentionally  begotten  in 
a  concupiscence  as  idle  and  thoughtless  as  that  of  dogs  or  flies 
or  swine.  It  has  been  surmised  that  he  was  evolved  from  the 
minor  consciousness  of  his  own  squalor,  but  this  must  always 
remain  a  matter  of  conjecture. 

To  the  most  minute  observer,  his  age  was  a  question  of  the 
gravest  doubt.  He  might  have  been  thirty,  he  might  have 
been  a  century,  with  no  violation  of  the  probabilities.  His 
hair  was  a  sandy  sorrel,  something  like  a  Rembrandt  interior, 
and  strayed  around  his  freckled  scalp  like  the  top-layer  of  a 
hayrick  in  a  tornado.  His  eyes  were  two  ulcers  half  filled 
with  pale-blue  starch.  A  thin,  sharp  nose  projected  above  a 
lipless  mouth  that  seemed  always  upon  the  point  of  breaking 
into  the  most  grievous  lamentations,  and  never  opened  save 
to  take  whisky  and  tobacco  in  and  let  oaths  and  saliva  out. 
A  long,  slender  neck,  yellow  and  wrinkled  after  the  manner  of 
a  lizard's  belly,  bore  this  dome  of  thought  upon  its  summit, 
itself  projecting  from  a  miscellaneous  assortment  of  gents' 
furnishing  goods,  which  covered  a  frame  of  unearthly  longi 
tude  and  unspeakable  emaciation.  Thorns  and  thongs  sup 
plied  the  place  of  buttons  upon  the  costume  of  this  Brummel 
of  the  bottom,  coarsely  patched  beyond  recognition  of  the 
original  fabric.  The  coat  had  been  constructed  for  a  giant, 
the  pants  for  a  pigmy.  They  were  too  long  in  the  waist  and 
too  short  in  the  leg,  and  flapped  loosely  around  his  shrunk 
shanks  high  above  the  point  where  his  fearful  feet  were  par- 


126  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

tially  concealed  by  mismated  shoes  that  permitted  his  great 
toes  to  peer  from  their  gaping  integuments,  like  the  heads 
of  two  snakes  of  a  novel  species  and  uncommon  fetor.  This 
princely  phenomenon  was  topped  with  a  hat  that  had  neither 
band  nor  brim  nor  crown; 

"If  that  could  shape  be  called  vvh'ch  shape  had  none." 

His  voice  was  high,  shrill,  and  querulous,  and  his  manner 
an  odd  mixture  of  fawning  servility  and  apprehensive  effront 
ery  at  the  sight  of  a  "damned  Yankee  Abolitionist,"  whom  he 
hated  and  feared  next  to  a  negro  who  was  not  a  slave. 

He  was  a  private  in  that  noble  army  of  chivalry  which 
marched  to  Kansas  to  fight  the  Puritan  idea,  and  the  ebbing 
tide  left  him  stranded  upon  the  Missouri  bottom.  He  found  a 
community  with  no  inheritance  of  transmitted  force  from  which 
to  rear  the  institutions  of  her  new  society.  The  liberal  cli 
mate  and  generous  soil  had  nurtured  a  luxuriant  vegetation, 
pastured  by  untamed  herds,  that  were  pursued  by  men  more 
savage  than  the  beasts  they  slew.  These  were  her  only  her 
itage,  except  the  traditions  of  religion,  education,  and  freedom 
that  animated  the  hearts  of  her  pioneers.  The  useless  mag 
nificence  of  the  prairie  was  unvexed  by  a  furrow.  Spring 
knew  no  seedtime,  autumn  no  harvest,  save  of  the  wild  store 
that  Nature  garners  for  beast  and  bird. 

It  is  appalling  to  reflect  what  the  condition  of  Kansas  would 
have  been  to-day  had  its  destiny  been  left  in  the  hands  of 
Shang  and  those  of  his  associates  who  first  did  its  voting  and 
attempted  to  frame  its  institutions.  A  few  hundred  mush- 
eating  chawbacons,  her  only  population,  would  still  have  been 
chasing  their  razor-backed  hogs  through  the  thickets  of  black 
jack,  and  jugging  for  catfish  in  the  chutes  of  the  Missouri  and 
the  Kaw.  How  great  the  change  has  been  is  attested  by  her 


CATFISH  ARISTOCRACY.  127 

five  hundred  thousand  people  living  in  Christian  homes  and 
pursuing  the  arts  of  peace ;  by  her  two  thousand  miles  of  rail 
road  in  successful  operation ;  by  her  granaries  that  would  feed 
the  world;  by  the  general  prevalence  of  law  and  order  amid 
great  temptations  to  violence  and  crime. 

Much  of  this  prosperity  is  due  to  the  favorable  conditions 
in  which  we  are  placed,  but  vastly  more  to  the  moral  causes 
which  underlie  our  social  and  moral  structure.  Kansas  is  the 
child  of  Plymouth  Rock.  It  was  once  fashionable  to  sneer  at 
this  historic  boulder,  but  it  is  the  most  impressive  spot  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  save  the  summit  of  Calvary.  The  Puritan 
idea  rules  the  world.  Like  Aaron's  rod,  when  it  appears  it 
swallows  up  all  others.  Shang  and  his  friends  would  have 
starved  to  death  the  first  season  on  the  sterile  hills  of  New 
England;  but  the  Puritan  manured  the  stingy  soil  with  ideas, 
and  it  has  produced  a  crop  that  is  better  than  corn,  or  oil, 
or  wine.  Ideas  are  more  profitable  than  hogs  or  beeves. 
Rich  Virginia  grows  poor,  and  poor  Massachusetts  rich,  be- 
because  the  Cavalier  thought  for  the  one,  and  the  Roundhead 
for  the  other.  The  Puritan  idea  is  aggressive.  It  has  an 
unconquerable  vitality.  Wheresoever  it  is  planted  it  becomes 
a  majority.  A  little  of  its  leaven  leavens  the  whole  lump. 
Assailed,  it  grows  strong;  wounded,  it  revives;  buried,  it  be 
comes  the  angel  of  its  own  resurrection. 

To  the  invincible  potency  of  this  idea  much  of  the  mar 
velous  growth  of  Kansas  is  attributable.  It  is,  on  the  whole, 
doubtful  whether  there  is  or  has  ever  been,  in  this  country, 
any  idea  but  the  Puritan.  Shang  never  thinks.  He  vege 
tates;  he  exists.  He  toils  on  horseback  through  the  mud 
with  his  sack  of  meal  from  grist-mill  to  grocery.  The  Puri 
tan  builds  a  railroad,  and  meditates  new  projects  as  he  trav- 


128  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

els  in  his  palace  car  from  ocean  to  ocean.  Wheresoever 
he  pauses  in  his  triumphal  career,  the  telegraph,  the  print 
ing-press,  the  sewing-machine,  and  the  innumerable  achieve 
ments  of  his  genius  signalize  his  beneficent  presence,  render 
the  burdens  of  life  less  degrading,  and  ennoble  the  soul  by 
the  consciousness  of  its  powers  to  bless  the  race. 


REGIS  LOISEL. 

1799 — 1804. 


Block  Seventeen,  South  Atchison,  had  merely  a  poten 
tial  existence  in  those  ancient  days.  That  oblong  rectangle, 
fronting  upon  a  postliminous  Third  Street,  was  unappar- 
ent  among  the  hazels  and  chincapin  oaks  which  feathered 
the  rounded  summit  of  the  bold  projecting  headland,  visi 
ble  to  the  keen  eyes  of  Regis  Loisel  for  leagues  along  the 
broad,  deep,  solitary  valley;  dimly  descried  through  autumn's 
melancholy  haze  and  the  azure  mist  of  April,  southward 
from  the  porphyry  bluffs,  whose  receding  vistas  converge 
to  the  horizon  above  the  columnar  cottonwoods  of  Cow  Island 
Bottom,  and  northward  from  Blacksnake's  barren  tumuli  of 
tawny  sand. 

S  Street  was  not.  White  Clay  crawled  sluggishly  on 
its  useless  errand  through  muddy  ooze,  and  idly  emptied 
its  turbid  urn.  Sumner,  Port  William,  and  I/eavenworth  had 
not  disturbed  the  wilderness  with  the  decline  and  fall  of  their 
ineffectual  dreams  of  fortune  and  empire.  The  great  railroad 
center  was  an  ovum  in  the  unimpregnated  womb  of  the  future 
when  Regis  Loisel  first  moored  his  bateaux  and  lighted  his 
camp-fire  beneath  a  rugged  elm  at  the  foot  of  Block  Seven 
teen,  in  1799;  the  central  point  in  the  arc  of  the  "Grand 
Detour,"  or  "Great  Western  Bend  of  the  Missouri." 

George  the  Third  was  King  of  England,  France  was  a 
republic.  Paul  the  First  was  Emperor  of  Russia.  Selim  the 


130  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Third  was  Sultan  of  the  Eastern  Empire.  John  Adams  was 
the  imperious  President  of  a  Federal  Union,  comprising  six 
teen  States,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee  being  the  outposts  and 
extreme  western  frontier.  The  first  Territorial  Legislature  of 
Ohio  had  just  met  at  the  huddle  of  log  huts  called  Cincinnati. 
Kansas  was  a  Spanish  province  under  the  dominion  of  Charles 
the  Fourth  and  Manuel  Godoy,  Duke  of  Alcudia  and  Prince 
of  the  Peace. 

The  haughty  hidalgo  with  sable  drooping  plume  and  sub 
tle  rapier  was  the  predecessor  of  the  border  ruffian,  the  Jay- 
hawker,  and  the  bullwhacker,  upon  the  banks  of  the  Mis 
souri.  To  his  successors  he  bequeathed  an  unsubstantial 
heritage,  and  laid  deep  in  the  soil  the  substructure  and  under 
pinning  of  that  fragile  architecture  which  has  given  to  every 
creek,  cross-roads,  and  slabtown  its  airy  chateaux  en  Espagne. 
The  Spanish  sway  in  Kansas  was  brief  and  barren  of  results. 
The  Castilian  emigrants  lingered,  by  the  shores  of  the  Gulf 
and  seldom  penetrated  far  inland.  They  were  a  race  of  buc 
caneers  and  pirates,  sensual,  selfish,  avaricious,  haunting  the 
coral  groups  and  tranquil  lagoons  of  the  tropics,  alternating 
between  frenzied  raids  for  silver  in  the  mines  of  Zacatecas, 
and  aimless  wandermgs  in  search  of  the  Fountain  of  Youth 
in  the  land  of  perpetual  flowers. 

France  was  the  owner  in  fee-simple  of  Block  Seventeen 
till  1762,  though  the  muniments  of  title  will  be  sought  in 
vain  among  the  records  of  the  Atchison  County  registry  of 
deeds.  The  real-estate  abstracts  of  Rust  &  Co.  contain  no 
reference  to  this  proprietorship,  nor  the  conveyance  in  1762 
to  Spain,  by  which  nation  it  was  held  till  1800,  when  Napo 
leon  Bonaparte  acquired  the  fee  in  trust  for  France,  and  cold 
it  in  1803  to  the  United  States. 


REGIS  LOISEL.  131 

Napoleon  was  not  a  fortunate  speculator  in  real  estate. 
He  had  no  use  for  Western  lands  and  town  lots.  He  did  not 
participate  in  that  sublime  and  universal  faith  which  believes 
that  property  will  be  higher  in  the  spring.  He  closed  out 
his  entire  interest  in  the  Atchison  town-site,  together  with 
all  the  adjacent  land  lying  west  of  the  Mississippi  and  south 
of  the  British  Possessions,  for  three  million  dollars,  which 
is  at  the  rate  of  more  than  a  hundred  acres  for  a  cent.  Real 
estate  in  Atchison  was  cheap  at  the  close  of  the  eighteenth 
centurv.  The  Hannibal  and  St.  Joseph  extension  had  not 
been  completed.  The  bridge  had  not  been  definitely  located. 
Forty-eight  trains  were  not  arriving  and  departing  daily. 
The  new  hotel  slept  in  the  clay-pits  at  the  foot  of  the  bluffs. 
And  yet  it  may  be  that  Bonaparte  was  right.  He  had,  per 
chance,  a  premonition  of  the  twenty-one  different  kinds  of 
taxes  and  assessments  that  would  be  annually  levied  on  Block 
Seventeen,  and  concluded  that  he  had  better  bell  out  before 
Baker  was  elected  treasurer — in  1872. 

For  there  were  no  taxes  in  that  halcyon  time.  Larceny 
had  not  been  legalized.  Confiscation  by  statute,  in  time 
of  peace,  had  not  been  invented.  Ten  per  cent  penalty  and 
fifty  per  cent  interest  was  the  hope  of  the  thieves  in  their 
most  daring  dreams  of  peculation.  The  avarice  and  cupidity 
of  that  primitive  epoch  did  not  demand  the  sanction  of  law, 
but  were  content  to  evade  its  penalties.  Strange  as  it  may- 
appear,  no  pompous  official  emerged  from  the  thickets  of 
elders  and  pawpaws  to  collect  wharfage  of  Regis  Loisel  as 
he  tied  up  his  fleet  at  the  steep  levee,  and  his  motley  crew 
of  Toyaveurs  and  coureurs  de  hois  scrambled  up  the  crumbling 
bank  weary  with  rowing,  cordelling,  and  poling  against  the 
yellow  current  of  the  capricious  and  turbid  stream. 


132  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Contrasted  with  Jamestown  and  Plymouth,  this  was  not 
many  years  ago;  but  all  antiquity  is  comparative  The  day 
before  we  were  born  is  older  than  Adam.  To  manhood 
the  recollections  of  infancy  recede  into  a  past  as  remote  as 
Noah.  To  those  whose  memories  reflect  the  ruined  images 
of  Quindaro  and  Lecompton,  earth  has  no  profounder  soli 
tudes,  time  no  more  ancient  epoch,  then  the  Kansas  of  Regis 
Loisel  in  seventeen  hundred  and  ninety-nine.  And  yet  suc 
cessive  emigrations  had  even  then  overflowed  and  subsided 
from  these  tranquil  plains,  leaving  no  memorials  that  time 
has  not  obliterated.  The  Aztec,  the  Mound-Builder,  the  sav 
age,  with  their  mysterious  industries,  their  unknown  avoca 
tions,  their  rude  commerce,  the  trepidations  of  their  wars, 
the  awful  sacrifices  of  their  religions,  the  inexorable  sanc 
tions  of  their  laws,  have  vanished  like  the  smoke  of  their 
altars  and  the  blood  of  their  victims.  The  temple,  the  devo 
tee,  and  the  god  have  sunk  into  common  oblivion.  Day  was 
as  night  save  for  the  alternations  of  sun  and  clouds.  The 
earth  grew  green  and  turned  white  again,  with  nothing  to 
mark  the  succession  of  the  unchanging  years. 

History  does  not  record  whether  such  meditations  occurred 
to  Regis  Loisel.  Thoughts  of  Helene  Chauvin  may  have 
floated  in  his  ambitious  and  scheming  brain  as  he  recalled 
the  desolate  wastes  of  cottonwood  and  sand  that  intervened 
between  the  "Grand  Detour"  and  the  little  French  hamlet 
where  she  dwelt,  or  the  weary  voyage  of  months  to  the  north 
ward  before  he  could  return.  But  he  was  no  idle  dreamer 
on  a  sentimental  journey,  in  search  of  objects  over  which 
his  sensibilities  could  expand.  The  past  had  no  charm  for 
him.  He  felt  the  sublime  agitations  of  youth.  Its  proph 
ecies  of  the  future  stirred  him  like  a  passion. 


REGIS  LOISEL.  133 

The  sullen  gray  bars  of  the  river  were  vocal  with  sonor 
ous  flocks  of  brant,  halting  for  a  night  on  their  prodigious 
emigrations  from  the  icebergs  to  the  palms.  Triangles  of 
wild  geese  harrowed  the  blue  fields  of  the  sky.  Regiments 
of  pelicans  performed  their  mysterious  evolutions  high  in 
air — now  white,  now  black,  as  their  wings  or  their  breasts 
were  turned  to  the  setting  sun.  The  sandhill  crane,  trail 
ing  the  ridiculous  longitude  of  his  thin  stilts  behind  him, 
dropped  his  gurgling  croak  from  aerial  elevations,  at  which 
his  outspread  pinions  seemed  but  a  black  mote  in  the  ocean 
of  the  atmosphere.  In  all  the  circumference  of  the  waste 
wilderness  beneath  him,  he  saw  no  tower  or  roof  or  spire 
upon  the  hills  of  Atchison,  no  cabin  on  the  prairie,  no  hollow 
square  cleared  in  the  forests  of  Buchanan  and  Platte;  heard 
no  vibration  of  bells,  no  scream  of  glittering  engine,  no  thun 
der  of  rolling  trains,  no  roar  of  wheels,  no  noise  of  masses 
of  men  like  distant  surf  tumbling  on  a  rocky  shore ;  no  human 
trace  along  the  curves  of  the  winding  river,  save  the  thin  blue 
fume  that  curled  upward  through  the  trees  at  the  base  of  the 
bluff  from  the  camp-fire  of  Regis  Loisel. 

The  geographies  and  atlases  of  twenty  years  ago  pre 
sented  this  favored  region  to  the  wondering  eyes  of  the  ingen 
uous  youth  of  that  period  as  a  dotted  area  of  irregular  out 
line,  labeled,  "Great  American  Desert,"  in  which  groups  of 
Holes-in-the-Day,  conical  lodges  of  pelts,  epizootic  buffalo, 
and  wild  gazelles  with  silvery  feet  were  scattered  in  reckless 
and  illogical  profusion.  So  profound  has  been  the  ignorance 
upon  this  topic  that  it  is  even  now  the  general  belief  that 
the  pioneers  of  '54  and  '55  entered  upon  an  untried  and  track 
less  solitude.  To  such  it  may  be  necessary  to  explain  the 
presence  of  this  intruding  explorer  with  his  flotilla  at  the 


i34  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Atchison  levee  in  1799,  in  company  with  Antoine  Tibeau  and 
his  brother  Pierre. 

The  connection  appears  remote,  but  it  is  historically  ac 
curate  to  say  that  he  was  here  because  that  eminent  nav 
igator,  Jacques  Cartier,  sailed  from  St.  Malo  in  1534,  and  en 
tered  the  river  St.  Lawrence,  taking  possession  of  the  coun 
try  in  the  name  of  Francis  I.,  King  of  France.  The  early 
settlers  of  Canada,  in  1535,  immediately  learned  the  immense 
value  of  the  furs  of  the  animals  that  swarmed  in  the  pure, 
cold  lakes  and  streams  and  the  lonely  forests  of  those  vast 
territories.  Collecting  them  in  great  quantities,  they  found 
an  increasing  demand  with  every  new  arrival  from  the  mother 
country,  and  the  fabulous  profits  of  the  traffic,  combined 
with  the  wild  romance  of  the  chase,  stimulated  enterprise 
and  capital  to  the  inauguration  of  gigantic  schemes.  Beads, 
liquors,  and  gaudy  apparel  were  shipped  from  French  sea 
ports  to  Quebec,  and  thence  distributed  among  the  Indian 
tribes  to  induce  them  to  pursue  their  congenial  occupation. 
The  Frenchmen,  naturally  adventurous  and  flexible,  readily 
assimilated  to  the  Indian  habits,  and  became  hunters  and 
explorers.  Hardy  and  courageous,  yet  mild  and  peaceable, 
they  penetrated  remote  regions  with  safety,  and  conciliated 
savage  tribes  by  their  superior  address.  Accompanied  by 
the  priests  of  their  religion,  they  planted  the  standard  of 
the  cross  by  the  flag  of  their  country  upon  the  forts  which 
thev  established  in  the  trackless  solitudes  of  the  St.  Law 
rence  and  the  Lakes.  Gradually  extending  the  area  of  their 
explorations,  they  crossed  the  continent  southwesterly  dur 
ing  the  century  following  their  first  settlement,  penetrating 
the  region  since  known  as  Wisconsin,  Michigan,  and  Illinois, 
descending  the  Mississippi  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico  in  1682,  and 


REGIS  LoisEiv.  135 

founding,  in  1718,  the  city  of  New  Orleans,  which  became 
thenceforward  the  southern  seaport  of  their  commerce,  out 
ranking  in  importance  both  Mackinaw  and  Montreal  in  the 
north. 

The  vast  region  bordering  the  Missouri  and  its  great  trib 
utaries  was  a  boundless  and  unexplored  field  for  the  fui- 
traders.  It  is  now  occupied  by  the  States  of  Arkansas,  Mis 
souri,  Iowa,  western  Minnesota,  Nebraska,  Kansas,  and  the 
Indian  Territory.  The  fur-bearing  animals  had  gradually  re 
ceded  westward  before  that  daring  and  mysterious  emigration 
which  subsequently  vanished,  leaving  its  history  written  in  the 
nomenclature  of  the  streams,  peaks,  passes,  and  plains,  from 
the  Yellowstone  to  the  Gulf,  from  the  Missouri  to  the  Pacific. 

In  1762  the  Director-General  of  Louisiana,  Monsieur  D'Ab- 
adie,  granted  to  a  company  of  New  Orleans  merchants  the 
exclusive  right  to  trade  for  furs  with  the  Indians  upon  the 
Missouri  River,  under  the  title  of  "Pierre  Ligueste  Laclede, 
Antoine  Maxan  &  Company." 

Laclede,  the  projector  of  the  enterprise,  was  a  mercantile 
adventurer  of  noble  descent  from  Bordeaux,  long  domiciled 
in  New  Orleans,  where  he  had  fallen  a  victim  to  the  volup 
tuous  charms  of  Madame  Chouteau,  the  wife  of  a  baker  of 
bread  and  pies  for  the  hungry,  and  a  vendor  of  ale  and  wine 
for  the  thirsty  villagers.  Monsieur  Chouteau,  the  baker, 
was  presumably  a  crusty  fellow,  neither  well  bread  nor  in 
the  flour  of  his  youth;  a  dough-faced  loaf-er  and  a  pie-biter 
of  the  deepest  dye.  Be  this  as  it  may,  Madame  preferred 
the  plume  and  sword  of  her  dashing  lover  to  the  paper  cap 
and  rolling-pin  of  her  liege  lord,  and  "lit  out"  in  the  summer 
of  1763  with  the  expedition  for  Ste.  Genevieve,  arriving  on 
November  3d,  where  they  went  into  winter  quarters.  After 


136  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

a  careful  examination  of  the  topography  of  the  surround' 
ing  country,  Laclede  selected  the  present  site  of  St.  Lours, 
and  established  a  trading-post  February  15,  1764,  erecting  a 
large  house  and  four  stores  on  the  levee.  In  due  time  he 
died,  bequeathing  his  name  to  a  street  and  a  hotel  in  the 
city  he  founded.  Madame  Chouteau  long  survived  him,  resid 
ing  in  St.  Louis  till  her  death,  leaving  a  numerous  progeny 
of  Chouteaus,  and  a  name  that  smells  sweet  and  blossoms 
in  the  dust.  She  was  a  woman  of  great  strength  of  character 
and  marvelous  personal  beauty,  and  ruled  St.  Louis  with  des 
potic  sovereignty. 

In  1770  the  village  comprised  forty  families,  protected 
from  savage  incursions  by  a  small  garrison.  On  August  n, 
1768,  Captain  Rion,  with  a  detachment  of  troops,  took  pos 
session  of  the  town  in  the  name  of  the  King  of  Spain,  under 
whose  dominion  it  nominally  remained  till  transferred  to 
the  United  States  in  1803;  at  which  time  it  continued  to  be 
merely  a  trading-post  with  a  few  hundred  inhabitants,  its 
annual  traffic  in  furs  amounting  to  about  $200,000.  The 
first  brick  house  was  erected  in  1813.  The  first  boat  left  its 
wharf  in  1819,  and  as  late  as  in  1822  it  contained  only  about 
5,000  inhabitants. 

Here,  in  1798,  landed  Regis  Loisel,  a  youth  of  twenty, 
born  near  Montreal,  a  soldier  of  fortune,  who  conceived  the 
idea  of  extending  the  fur  trade  to  the  head-waters  of  the 
Missouri  and  its  tributaries  in  the  extreme  northern  fast 
nesses  of  the  Rocky  Mountains.  It  was  a  bold  and  auda 
cious  scheme,  and  implied  the  possession  of  extraordinary 
powers  of  body  and  mind.  The  distance  alone  was  appalling. 
Months  were  consumed  in  the  transportation  of  stores  and 
supplies  by  rude  boats,  driven  against  the  turbulent  current 


REGIS  LOISEL.  137 

by  favoring  gales,  or  drawn  by  men  walking  along  the  shore, 
toiling  at  a  rope  attached  to  the  mast-head.  The  naviga 
tion  was  inconceivably  slow  and  dangerous.  Tribes  of  impla 
cable  savages  resented  the  invasion  of  their  domains,  adding 
to  the  labors  of  the  voyage  the  terrors  of  ambush  from  the 
imprenetrable  forests  that  darkened  the  shores. 

Associated  with  him  in  the  daring  enterprise  was  Pierre 
Chouteau  and  Jacques  Glamorgan,  under  the  mercantile  name 
of  " Glamorgan,  Loisel  &  Company."  Chouteau  was  a  descend 
ant  of  the  beautiful  bakeress  of  New  Orleans.  Glamorgan  was 
a  French  Creole  from  Guadaloupe,  educated  at  Paris,  whose 
dusky  amours  have  given  to  St.  Louis  a  race  of  laundresses 
and  barbers  like  Shakespeare's  "cuckoo-buds  of  yellow  hue." 

In  the  promotion  of  the  purposes  of  their  commercial 
venture,  Loisel  ascended  the  river  in  1799,  and  established 
a  trading-post  on  an  island  in  the  Upper  Missouri,  where 
he  subsequently  made  a  field  and  garden,  and  built  a  four- 
bastioned  fort  of  cedar  logs.  This  locality  is  in  the  present 
territory  of  Dakota,  and  directly  in  the  route  of  the  Northern 
Pacific  Railroad. 

Returning  to  St.  Louis  in  the  development  of  his  plans, 
the  partnership  being  dissolved,  he  anticipated  the  policy 
of  the  Government  by  promptly  applying  for  a  land-grant 
in  the  following  terms: 

"To  A  if.  Charles  Dehault  Delassus,  Lieutenant-Colonel  of  the  Stationary  Reg 
iment  of  Louisiana,  and  Lieutenant-Governor  of  Upper  Louisiana,  &c.: 
"SiR:    Regis  Loisel  has  the  honor  to  submit  that  having  made  consid 
erable  sacrifices  in  the  Upper  Missouri  Company  in  aiding  to  the  discoveries 
of  Indian  nations  in  that  quarter  in  order  to  increase  commerce  hereafter, 
as  also  to  inculcate  to  these  different  nations  favorable  sentiments  towards 
the  Government  and  have  them  devoted  to  the  service  of  his  Majesty,  so  as 
to  be  able  to  put  a  stop  to  the  contraband  trade  of  foreigners  who,  scatter 
ing  themselves  among  those  Indians,  employ  all  imaginable  means  to  make 


138  JOHN  JAMES  IXGALLS. 

them  adopt  principles  contrary  to  the  attachment  they  owe  to  the  Govern 
ment.  The  petitioner  has  also  furnished  with  zeal,  presents,  in  order  to  gain 
the  friendship  of  those  different  nations  for  the  purpose  to  disabuse  them  of 
the  errors  insinuated  to  them,  and  to  obtain  a  free  passage  through  their 
lands  and  a  durable  peace.  The  petitioner,  intending  to  continue  on  his  own 
account  the  commerce  which  his  partners  have  abandoned  in  that  quarter, 
hopes  that  you  will  be  pleased  to  grant  to  him,  for  the  convenience  of  his 
trade,  permission  to  form  an  establishment  in  Upper  Missouri,  distant 
about  four  hundred  leagues  from  this  town,  and  which  shall  be  situated  on 
the  said  Missouri  between  the  river  known  under  the  name  of  Riviere  du 
vieux  Anglais,  which  empties  itself  in  the  said  Missouri  on  the  right  side 
of  it,  descending  the  stream,  and  lower  down  than  Cedar  Island  and  the 
river  known  under  the  name  of  Riviere  de  la  Cote  de  Medicine,  which  is  on 
the  left  side,  descending  the  stream,  and  higher  up  than  Cedar  Island, 
which  island  is  at  equal  distance  from  the  two  rivers  above  named  That 
place  being  the  most  convenient  for  his  operations,  as  well  in  the  Upper  as 
in  the  Lower  Missouri,  and  it  being  indispensable  to  secure  to  himself  the 
timber  in  an  indisputable  manner,  he  is  obliged  to  have  recourse  to  your 
goodness,  praying  that  you  will  be  pleased  to  grant  to  him  a  concession 
in  full  property  for  him,  his  heirs  or  assigns,  for  the  extent  of  land  situ 
ated  along  the  banks  of  the  said  Missouri,  and  comprised  between  the 
river  called  the  Old  Englishman's  and  the  one  called  the  Medicine  Bluff, 
here  above  mentioned,  by  the  depth  of  one  league  in  the  interior  on 
each  side  the  Missouri,  and  including  the  island  known  by  the  name  of 
Cedar  Island,  as  also  other  small  timbered  islands.  In  granting  his  de 
mand,  he  shall  never  cease  to  render  thanks  to  your  goodness. 

"REGis  LoiSEL. 
"St   Louis  of  Illinois,  March  20,  1800.' 

To  which  ingenious  petition  the  Governor  was  pleased  to 
respond  by  his  concession,  in  manner  following,  that  is  say: 

"St.  Louis  OF  ILLINOIS,  March  25,  1800. 

"Whereas,  It  is  notorious  that  the  petitioner  has  made  great  losses 
when  in  the  company  he  mentions,  and  as  he  continues  his  voyages  of 
discoveries  conformably  to  tke  desires  of  the  Government,  which  are  the 
cause  of  great  expense  to  him,  and  it  being  for  the  commerce  of  peltri  js  with 
the  Indians  necessary  that  forts  should  be  constructed  among  these  remote 
nations,  as  much  to  impress  them  with  respect  as  to  have  places  of  deposit 
for  the  goods  and  other  articles  which  merchants  carry  to  them,  and  par 
ticularly  for  those  of  the  petitioner,  for  these  reasons  I  do  grant  to  him  and 
to  his  successors  the  land  which  *.\e  solicits  in  the  same  place  where  he  asks, 
provided  it  is  not  to  the  prejudice  of  anybody;  and  th?  saic  land  being 


REGIS  LOISEL.  139 

very  far  from  this  post,  he  is  not  obliged  to  have  it  surveyed  at  present ;  but 
however,  he  must  apply  to  the  1  ntendant-General  in  order  to  obtain  the 
title  in  form  from  said  Intendant,  because  to  him  belongs,  by  order  of  his 
Majesty,  the  granting  of  all  classes  of  lands  belonging  to  the  royal  domain. 

'CARLOS  DEHAULT  DELASSUS." 

The  tract  thus  secured  was  about  fifteen  miles  long  by 
five  miles  in  width,  with  special  advantages  for  trade,  and 
as  a  military  post  to  which  the  trappers  could  resort  for 
protection  in  winter,  a  depot  where  supplies  were  distributed 
and  furs  collected  for  shipment  by  canoes  and  -mackinaws 
to'  St.  Louis,  on  the  "rise"  from  the  melting  of  the  moun 
tain  snows. 

Loisel  prosecuted  his  venture  with  varying  fortunes  till 
1804,  making  several  voyages,  and  opening  a  farm  to  furnish 
his  garrison  with  vegetables  and  grain.  In  the  autumn  of 
this  year  he  descended  the  Mississippi  from  St.  Louis  to  New 
Orleans,  for  the  purpose  of  engaging  the  assistance  of  cap 
italists  in  a  scheme  to  penetrate  the  Rocky  Mountains  and 
establish  the  fur  trade  in  the  extreme  northwest  upon  the 
Pacific  Ocean.  Falling  ill  upon  his  journey,  he  went  imme 
diately  to  the  house  of  Monsieur  Joseph  Perillat,  where  he 
became  rapidly  worse,  and  on  the  first  of  October  made  his 
will  before  a  notary,  who  gave  the  following  copy,  which 
was  filed  in  the  succeeding  February  in  the  probate  court 
of  St.  Louis,  before  Judge  Marie  P.  Leduc: 

"This  day,  first  October,  eighteen  hundred  and  four,  and  the  twenty- 
ninth  year  of  the  Independence  of  America,  we..  Narcisse  Brontin,  Notary 
Public  of  the  United  States  of  America,  resident  of  the  town  of  New 
Orleans,  transported  ourselves  at  the  demand  of  Monsieur  Regis  Loisel  in  his 
domicile,  (house  of  Monsieur  Perillat.)  situated  at  about  one-half  league 
from  the  town  of  New  Orleans,  where  being  we  have  found  the  said  Mr. 
Loisel  sick  abed,  but  in  his  full  judgment,  memory,  and  natural  under 
standing,  and  in  presence  of  the  witnesses  hereinafter  named,  he  told  us 
that  fearing  death,  which  is  natural  to  all  creatures,  its  hour  uncertain,  he 


140  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

wished  to  put  his  affairs  in  order  and  make  his  testament,  which  he  dic 
tated  to  us  in  the  form  following: 

"Firstly:  He  has  declared  himself  C.  A.  R.,  native  of  Assumption,  in 
Lower  Canada,  legitimate  son  of  Registre  Loisel  and  Manette  Massin, 
both  defunct. 

"Item:  He  has  declared  to  us  that  he  was  married  with  Miss  Helene 
Chauvin,  resident  of  St.  Louis  of  Il'inois,  of  which  marriage  he  has  two 
daughters,  named  Manette,  aged  three  years,  and  Clementine,  aged  sixteen 
months,  and  that  his  spouse  is  at  present  pregnant. 

"Item:  He  declared  to  us  that  he  owed  several  persons,  as  will  be 
established  by  his  notes,  obligations,  arid  accounts,  and  that  there  were 
due  him  amounts  according  as  they  shall  be  established  by  bills,  accounts, 
and  obligations  which  shall  be  found  in  his  posses  ion.  17?  orders  his 
testamentary  executors  to  pay  his  debts  and  to  receive  what  is  due  to  hi.^n. 

"Item:  He  declared  to  us  that  his  property  consisted  of  a  mulatto 
and  a  farm  at  St.  Louis  of  Illinois,  in  a  house  and  lot,  the  title  \  ipers  of 
which  are  at  Mr.  Glamorgan's;  in  horned  cattle,  &c. 

"Item:  He  declared  to  us,  naming  for  his  sole  and  universal  heirs  his 
above  named  two  daughters,  Manette  and  Clementine,  and  also  the  child 
of  which  his  spouse  is  pregnant,  in  case  he  liv?,  shall  inherit  an  equal  por 
tion  with  the  children  before  named. 

"Item:  He  has  declared  to  us,  naming  for  tutrix  and  curatrix  of  his 
children  his  said  spouse,  relieving  her  from  all  legal  responsibility. 

"Item:  He  declared  to  us,  naming  for  testamentary  executors  of  his 
estate  the  Sieurs  Auguste  Chouteau  and  Jacques  Glamorgan,  merchants  of 
St.  Louis  of  Illinois,  to  whom  he  gives  power  to  make  inventory  sale  and 
subdivisison  of  his  estate  between  his  heirs,  without  the  intervention  of 
law  under  any  pretext.  He  supplicates  them  also  to  have  the  kindness  u> 
have  three  masses  said  for  the  repose  of  his  soul. 

"Item:  He  declared  to  us  that  he  had  here  in  town,  in  his  trunk,  a 
bundle  of  law-papers  concerning  Mr.  Peignoux  and  Mr.  Lafourcade,  which 
said  papers,  in  case  any  accident  should  happen  him,  he  desires  that  Mr. 
Manuel  Lisa  should  take  charge  of  and  remit  them  to  Mr.  Glamorgan. 

"Item:  He  declared  to  us  having  merchandise  on  the  Upper  Missouri, 
in  the  care  of  Mr.  Pierre  Tabeau.  He  prays  his  testamentary  executors 
to  cause  the  whole  to  be  brought  to  St.  Louis  of  Illinois.  He  declared  to 
us  also  having  here  in  town  forty  buffalo-robes,  which  he  prays  Mr.  Eugene 
Dorcier  to  have  the  kindness  to  sell  them,  and  to  pay  with  the  proceeds  the 
debts  which  might  be  occasioned  by  his  sickness,  and  to  remit  the  balance, 
if  perchance  any  be  left,  to  his  executors  testamentary. 

"Item:  He  declared  to  us  to  have  an  account  current  with  Mr.  Gla 
morgan,  extending  many  years  back;  that  he  had  signed  an  account  of 
forty  thousand  and  some  hundred  livres,  but  that  since  that  time  he  had 


REGIS  LOISEL.  141 

paid  the  said  Glamorgan,  at  divers  times,  a  greater  amount  than  the  said 
sum. 

"Item:  He  declared  to  us  that  the  said  House  of  Glamorgan,  Loisel  & 
Company  owed  him  five  thousand  livres  at  least. 

"Item:  In  case  that  the  goods  in  possession  of  the  testator  in  the 
Upper  Missouri  are  not  sufficient  to  pay  that  which  he  owes  Mr.  Chouteau, 
he  prays  him  to  have  a  kind  regard  for  his  family. 

"Item:  The  testator  declared  to  us  that  he  annulled  all  other  testa 
ments,  codicils,  powers  or  dispositions  which  he  has  made  before  this  one, 
declaring  null  and  of  no  effect,  or  effect  all  such  except  this. 

"Which  having  read  to  him,  he  signed  in  presence  of  Manuel  Lisa, 
Antoine  Fromentin,  and  Joseph  Perillat,  witnesses  domiciled  in  this  town 

"In  testimony  whereof,  we  said  notary  have  affixed  our  hand  and  the 
seal  of  our  office  the  day  and  year  before  written. 
[L.  S.]  (Signed)         "R^o.   LOISEL. 

"ANTOINE  FROMENTIN. 

"MANUEL  LISA.  NARCISSE  BRONTIN, 

"JOSEPH  PERILLAT.  Notary  Public. 

"I  certify  that  the  present  copy  conforms  to  the  original  which  rests 
in  my  hands.  NARCISSE  BRONTIN,  Notary  Public. 

"New  Orleans,  this  fourth  of  October,  1804." 

Having  executed  this  testament,  Monsieur  Brontin  took 
his  ink-horn  and  departed.  The  sick  man  became  impa 
tient  at  the  restraints  of  his  illness  and  anxious  to  ioin  his 
family  before  approaching  winter  had  closed  the  river  above 
with  ice.  Borne  to  his  boat  upon  a  couch  of  buffalo-robes, 
he  started  on  the  long  journey  to  St.  Louis.  His  strength 
was  not  equal  to  the  fatigue  and  exposure  of  the  voyage. 
Near  the  mouth  of  the  Arkansas  he  died  and  was  buried, 
and  his  grave  no  man  knoweth.  Death  baffled  his  ambi 
tious  dreams  at  the  early  age  of  twenty-six,  but  the  three 
masses  for  which  he  supplicated  could  not  give  repose  to 
his  soul.  The  child  with  which  his  wife  was  pregnant  was 
bom,  became  a  priest,  and  died.  Helene,  his  widow,  mar 
ried  again,  bore  other  children,  and  died  full  of  years.  His 
two  daughters  became  mothers,  and  died,  and  their  children 


14?  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

followed  them  to  the  cathedral  graveyard,  and  still  he  was 
not  at  rest. 

In  the  Treaty  of  Cession  the  Government  recognized  the 
validity  of  the  land-grants  made  by  the  Spanish  and  French 
governors,  and  appointed  boards  of  commissioners  to  report 
those  that  were  genuine  to  Congress  for  confirmation.  After 
the  death  of  Loisel,  the  concession  of  Delassus  at  Cedar  Island 
was  ostensibly  sold  to  his  executors  for  ten  dollars,  payable 
in  shaved  deer-skins  at  forty  cents  per  pound.  The  differ 
ent  boards  refused  to  recognize  the  claim,  and  it  slept  until 
1858,  when  Congress  passed  an  act  confirming  the  title,  and 
authorizing  the  issue  of  a  patent  for  38,111  lo-oo's  acres  of 
land  to  the  legal  representative  of  Regis  Loisel,  to  be  located 
upon  any  vacant  lands  of  the  United  States.  In  1859  the 
lands  were  entered  in  the  counties  of  Nemaha,  Marshall,  Jack 
son,  and  Pottawatomie,  Kansas,  and  remained  vacant  ten  years 
longer  under  an  accumulated  burden  of  unliquidated  taxes. 

Meanwhile  legislatures  enacted  laws,  courts  adjudged  and 
decreed,  and  generations  of  lawyers  wrangled  in  fruitless 
effort  to  determine  who  was  entitled  to  this  imperial  inher 
itance — whether  the  title  descended  to  the  lineal  posterity 
of  the  testator,  or  whether  it  passed  in  1805  to  the  executor, 
Jacques  Glamorgan,  by  the  alleged  sale  for  twenty-five  pounds 
of  shaved  deer-skins,  that  did  not  appear  to  have  been  paid. 

And  thus  at  last,  in  the  strange  vicissitude  and  mutation 
that  accompanies  human  affairs,  it  chanced  that  the  pro 
tracted  strife  finally  closed  in  the  courts  of  Nemaha,  and 
it  was  there  determined  who  were  the  "heirs  of  Regis  L-oisel." 

Had  the  bandage  been  removed  from  the  eyes  of  the 
Goddess  of  Justice  upon  that  wintry  day,  she  would  have 
dropped  the  idle  scales  and  brandished  the  avenging  sword. 


REGIS  LOISEL.  143 

They  have  built  her  a  stately  temple  since,  whose  harmoni 
ous  and  symmetrical  mass  is  the  poem  of  a  landscape  that 
was  enchanted  before  a  cheap  railway  had  spanned  the  Nem- 
aha  with  its  skeleton  truss,  and  dumped  its  black  grade  diag 
onally  across  the  great  military  road  that  trailed  westward 
through  the  village  and  over  the  level  prairie  toward  Salt 
Lake  arid  the  Pacific  Ocean.  But  upon  the  day  aforesaid, 
the  goddess  dwelt  like  the  apostle  in  her  own  hired  house,  a 
chosen  sanctuary  of  cotton  wood  that  stood  four-square  to  all 
the  winds  that  blew.  Here  were  the  aegis,  the  palladium,  the 
forum,  the  ermine,  the  immortal  twelve,  and  all  the  parapher 
nalia  inseparable  from  the  administration  of  law  even  in  its 
most  primitive  form — essential  to  its  sanctions,  the  staple  of 
its  orators;  without  which,  we  are  assured  by  its  ministers, 
the  proud  edifice  of  our  liberties  would  incontinently  topple 
and  fall  headlong  from  turret  to  foundation-stone. 

The  two  windows  rattling  in  their  rude  casements  were 
curtained  with  frost  of  the  thickness  and  consistency  of  tripe. 
Between  them,  with  his  head  dangerously  near  the  rough 
mortar  of  the  ceiling,  sat  his  honor  the  judge,  surveying  the 
scene  from  an  inverted  packing-box,  his  boots  interrupt 
ing  his  vision,  and  his  chair  inclined  against  the  wall.  The 
harangues  of  the  advocates  were  enlivened  by  the  musical 
clinking  of  glasses,  the  festal  notes  of  the  rustic  Cremona, 
and  boisterous  bursts  of  inebriated  laughter  from  the  dog 
gery  beneath.  Planks  of  splintered  pine,  sustained  by  a  beg 
garly  account  of  empty  boxes,  soap  and  cracker,  spice  and 
candle,  from  adjacent  groceries,  afforded  repose  to  a  group  of 
dilapidated  loafers  who  crouched  and  shivered  around  the 
smoking  stove.  As  they  masticated  their  "flat  tobacker,"  they 


144  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

meditatively  expectorated  in  the  three-ply  saw-dust  that  car 
peted  the  floor,  and  listened  to  the  will  of  Regis  Loisel. 

The  subtle  potency  of  the  soul  of  the  bold  adventurer 
spoke  imperiously  from  the  abyss  of  a  forgotten  past.  His 
voice  emanated  from  an  unknown  grave,  across  the  inter 
val  of  three-quarters  of  a  century.  His  restless  and  uneasy 
ghost  animated  the  mysterious  syllables  at  whose  utterance 
arose  the  phantom  of  Law,  which  irresistibly  forbade  intru 
sion  upon  sixty  square  miles  of  Kansas  prairie,  in  the  name 
and  by  the  will  of  Regis  Loisel. 

And  so  the  drama  ended.  Three  generations  had  passed 
away.  The  squalid  hamlet  had  expanded  into  an  opulent 
metropolis,  of  which  his  descendants  are  eminent  and  hon 
ored  citizens.  States  had  sprung  like  an  exhalation  from 
the  wilderness.  An  intense  civilization  pervaded  the  pro- 
foundest  solitudes.  Nothing  remained  unchanged  in  the  wild 
world  of  his  brief  life  save  the  impassive  and  desolate  river 
which  wears  as  then,  and  will  forever  wear,  the  impervious 
mask  of  its  sullen  mystery;  which  bears  as  then,  and  will 
forever  bear,  the  burden  of  its  secret  unrevealed,  yielding  no 
response  to  the  living  who  tempt  its  inconstant  wave,  nor  the 
dead  who  sleep  by  its  complaining  shore 

May  his  soul  rest  in  peace! 


THE  LAST  OF  THE  JAYHAWKERS. 


The  Audubon  of  the  twentieth  century,  as  he  compiles  the 
history  of  the  birds  of  Kansas,  will  vainly  search  the  ' '  Ornitho 
logical  Biographies"  of  his  illustrious  predecessor  for  any  allu 
sion  to  the  "jayhawk. "  Investigation  will  disclose  the  jay 
(Cyanurus  cristatus),  and  the  hawk  (Accipeter  fuscus) :  the 
former  a  mischievous,  quarrelsome  egg-sucker,  a  blue-coated 
cousin  of  the  crow  and  an  epicure  of  carrion ;  the  latter  a  cloud- 
haunting  pirate,  the  assassin  of  the  atmosphere,  whose  flattened 
skull,  rapacious  beak,  and  insatiable  appetite  for  blood  impel 
it  to  an  agency  of  destruction,  and  place  it  among  the  repulsive 
ranks  of  the  living  ministers  of  death.  Were  it  not  that  Nature 
forbids  the  adulterous  confusion  of  her  types,  he  might  surmise 
that  the  jayhawk  was  a  mule  among  birds,  the  illicit  offspring 
of  some  sudden  liason  or  aerial  intrigue,  endowed  with  the  most 
malign  attributes  of  its  progenitors.  But  as  this  conclusion 
would  be  unerringly  rejected  by  the  deductions  of  his  science, 
he  would  be  compelled  to  look  elsewhere  for  the  origin  of 
this  obscure  tenant  of,  the  air,  whose  notable  exploits  caused 
it  to  be  accepted  as  the  symbol  of  the  infant  State,  giving 
to  a  famous  regiment  its  title,  and  to  the  inhabitants  their 
novel  appellation  of  "Jayhawkers,"  by  that  happy  nomenclature 
which  would  induce  the  unsophisticated  chronicler  to  suppose 
that  the  population  of  Illinois  was  composed  entirely  of  in 
fants  at  the  breast,  and  that  the  chief  vegetable  productions 

of  Missouri  were  ipecac  and  lobelia. 

MS 


146  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

• 

Convinced  by  his  researches  that  the  jayhawk  no  longer 
existed,  he  would  naturally  inquire  whether  it  had  once  lived 
and  became  extinct,  or  whether  it  was  merely  a  fabulous 
myth,  the  creation  of  vagrant  fancy,  flying  only  in  a  dream 
er's  brain. 

Instances  are  not  wanting  of  other  celebrated  birds  whose 
origin  is  equally  uncertain,  and  whose  existence  even  has 
been  denied.  Prominent  among  them  is  the  dodo,  that  enig 
ma  in  feathers,  the  last  of  whose  melancholy  race  was  re 
ported  to  have  expired  not  earlier  than  two  centuries  ago, 
upon  the  island  of  Mauritius.  This  belief  was  accepted  by 
the  scientific  world  upon  what  appeared  to  be  credible  evi 
dence;  and  yet  its  erroneousness  was  conclusively  shown 
by  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes,  in  a  case  involving  the  question, 
tried  several  years  since  before  the  Suffolk  Common  Pleas, 
in  which  the  doctor  introduced  in  testimony  a  bill  of  sale 
showing  incontrovertibly  that  a  dodo  had  been  recently 
sold  in  Boston,  and  that  consequently  the  species  could  not 
have  been  extinct.  The  document  was  as  follows: 

JOHN  E.  SMITH  to  ROBERT  C.  GREER,  Dr. 
1856. 

Oct.   1 3.      To  one  canary-bird $2.50 

Nov.  10.      To  one         do    do    3.00 

Rec'dpay't.  $5-5O 

The  lurid  placards  of  modern  insurance  companies  have 
familiarized  the  public  mind  with  the  phoenix,  an  Arabian 
fowl,  reputed  to  live  five  hundred  years,  at  the  expiration 
of  which  patriarchal  period,  it  erected  a  funeral  pyre  of  sweet- 
scented  woods  and  aromatic  gums,  perched  upon  its  apex, 
fanned  it  into  flame  by  the  undulations  of  its  tail  and  was  suicid- 
-ally  consumed  in  the  conflagration.  It  is  related  of  a  famous 


THE  LAST  OF  THE  JAYHAWKERS.  147 

wit  who  supposed  he  was  dying  that  his  physician  felt  of  his 
extremities,  found  they  were  not  cold,  and  told  his  patient 
that  no  man  could  die  while  his  feet  were  warm ;  to  which  he 
responded  that  he  had  heard  of  one  who  did,  and  being  asked 
to  name  him,  replied,  "John  Rogers!"  whereupon  a  heavenly 
smile  lit  up  his  wan  features  and  he  passed  on  to  the  higher  life . 
The  phoenix  was  another  instance  of  the  same  fact,  and  its 
last  hours  were  probably  consoled  by  the  thought  that  out 
of  its  ashes  another  phoenix  would  arise  to  repeat  the  ex 
periment,  be  similarly  calcined  and  reproduced,  and  subse 
quently  alluded  to  by  an  American  newspaper  in  connection 
with  the  great  Chicago  fire.  As  but  one  phoenix  existed  at 
one  time,  and  he  was  his  own  successor,  this  bird  has  the 
honor  of  being  the  only  known  illustration  in  the  animal  king 
dom  of  a  sole  corporation. 

The  reader  of  the  "Arabian  Nights  Entertainments"  will 
not  fail  to  recall  the  roc — the  roc  upon  which  so  many  have 
split — the  roc  of  ages  gone  by,  one  of  whose  eggs,  suitably 
decomposed,  would  have  made  an  omelette  for  the  entire 
Liberal  Republican  party  of  Kansas. 

Time  would  fail  to  tell  of  the  auk,  the  emu,  the  harpy, 
the  apteryx,  and  the  ornithorhyncus,  of  whom  the  world 
was  not  worthy,  that  have  wandered  in  deserts  and  moun 
tains,  and  in  dens  and  caves  of  the  earth;  vague,  mysterious 
creatures,  congeners  of  the  jayhawk  in  its  dubious  origin 
and  its  wild  career. 

The  jayhawk  is  a  creation  of  mythology.  Every  nation 
has  its  myths,  human  and  animal,  some  of  which  disappear 
as  the  State  matures,  while  others  continue  to  stand  out  upon 
its  early  horizon  in  conspicuous  proportions,  enlarged  rather 
than  diminished  by  the  distance  that  intervenes.  The  infancy 


148  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

and  childhood  of  communities,  as  well  as  that  of  individuals, 
abound  in  legends  and  traditions  which  become  crystallized  by 
time  into  a  mythology  in  which  qualities  become  personified, 
and  the  forces  and  operations  of  Nature  are  symbolized  as  liv 
ing  beings,  so  that  history,  like  the  nursery,  has  its  Mother 
Goose's  Melodies  whose  idle  rhymes  were  sung  at  the  cradle 
of  the  race. 

In  the  twilight  of  time  the  domain  of  fact  insensibly 
yields  to  the  shadowy  realm  of  fable;  the  true  and  the  false 
are  confonded;  the  real  is  indistinguishable  from  the  imag 
inary;  and  out  of  the  confusion  is  born  a  brood  of  phan 
toms  and  chimeras,  centaurs,  demi-gods  and  goddesses,  heroes 
and  monsters,  phoenixes  and  jayhawks,  that  under  different 
names  have  peopled  the  early  times  of  every  nation  since 

the  world  began.     In  this  strange  procreation,  beauty  becomes 

% 
Venus;  strength,  Hercules;  appetite,  Bacchus;  manhood,  in  its 

glory,  Apollo;  and  the  elements  themselves  are  endowed  with 
sentient  life. 

The  process  is  not,  as  we  are  apt  to  imagine,  peculiar 
to  the  races  of  antiquity,  but  is  witnessed  in  the  history  of 
every  community,  great  or  small,  which  attempts  the  ex 
periment  of  an  independent  existence.  The  realism  of  later 
days  sometimes  strips  these  phantasms  of  their  insubstan 
tial  vestments  and  reveals  their  native  deformity,  as  the 
traveler  with  his  lens  detects  upon  the  distant  summit  which 
seems  but  a  deeper  stain  upon  the  forehead  of  the  morning 
sky,  its  ragged  garb  of  forest  and  its  gray  scalp  of  rock;  but 
generally  they  become  more  respectable  with  age.  They  are 
accepted  as  facts.  Poetry  decorates  them  with  its  varnish. 
Orators  cover  them  with  a  rhetorical  veneer,  and  they  are 
incorporated  into  the  general  literature  of  the  country. 


THE  LAST  OF  THE  JAYHAWKERS.  149 

Had  an  irreverent  Athenian  ventured  to  doubt  Silenus 
or  denounce  Priapus,  he  would  probably  have  been  received 
with  a  stormy  outcry  like  that  which  greeted  Bancroft  when 
he  ventured  to  disclose  the  truth  about  some  of  the  paragons 
of  early  American  history.  And  yet  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  the  popular  notion  of  the  founders  of  the  Government 
is  as  purely  mythological  as  the  Grecian  dream  of  Jupiter 
and  Minerva.  With  what  awe  in  our  boyhood  do  we  con 
template  the  majestic  name  of  Washington!  That  benign 
and  tranquil  although  somewhat  stolid  visage  looks  down 
upon  us  from  a  serene  atmosphere  unstained  with  earthly 
passion.  That  venerable  fame  bears  no  taint  of  mortal 
frailty  save  in  the  juvenile  episode  of  the  hatchet,  in  which 
the  venial  error  is  expiated  by  the  immortal  candor  of  its 
confession.  To  our  revering  fancy,  the  massive  form  wrapped 
in  military  cloak  stands  forever  at  midnight  upon  the  frozen 
banks  of  the  Delaware,  watching  the  patriot  troops  cross 
the  icy  current  in  the  darkness  before  the  grand  morning 
of  Trenton;  or  else,  arrayed  in  black  velvet  small-clothes, 
resigning  his  commission  to  the  Continental  Congress  at 
Annapolis.  We  learn  in  riper  years,  with  grief  not  unmin- 
gled  with  incredulity,  that  this  great  man  was  subject  to 
ungovernable  outbreaks  of  rage,  that  he  swore  like  a  mule- 
driver,  and  that  he  was  not  only  the  Father  of  his  Country, 
but  also  of  Governor  Posey  of  Indiana. 

With  such  disheartening  examples  before  us,  it  is  not 
unreasonable  to  believe  that  the  student  of  Kansas  history 
a  hundred  years  hence,  as  he  reverts  from  the  men  and 
manners  of  that  degenerate  time  to  the  first  splendid  lustra 
of  his  native  State,  will  turn  to  Genesis  vi.  4  for  consola 
tion,  and  say  with  a  sigh:  "There  were  giants  in  the  earth 


150  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

in  those  days."  The  colossal  characters  nurtured  in  the 
primeval  convulsions  of  our  politics  will  have  passed  into 
mythology.  Tradition  will  have  lent  its  pensive  charm  to 
the  eloquence  of  Carney,  the  unquenchable  fire  of  Crawford. 
Lane's  impregnable  virtue,  Lowe's  aggressive  vigor,  the  sen 
sitive  honor  of  Clarke — that  "tall  young  oak  of  the  Kaw," 
whose  acorns  fattened  the  swine  in  Caldwell's  sty — Caldwell. 
who  proudly  rose  in  his  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate  in  '72 
and  hurled  back  with  indignation  the  charge  that  he  bought 
his  senatorial  toga  at  a  political  slop-shop — ah !  who  could  for 
bear  to  admit  that  there  were  indeed  giants  in  the  earth  in 
those  days? 

This  was  the  close  of  the  epoch  when  the  jayhawk  flew  in 
the  troubled  atmosphere.  It  was  an  early  bird,  and  it  caught 
many  a  Missouri  worm.  The  worms  did  not  object  to  the 
innocent  amusement  of  the  bird,  but  they  insisted  that  public 
opinion  must  and  should  be  respected. 

But  the  bird  had  a  mission.  It  could  not  be  caught  with 
chaff,  nor  would  it  allow  salt  to  be  put  on  its  tail.  It  pursued 
its  ministry  of  retribution,  protection,  and  vengeance  through 
many  bloody  years,  till  the  worms  were  fain  to  concede  the 
superiority  of  their  feathered  antagonist  and  adopt  the  senti 
ment  of  the  popular  melody,  "Oh,  birdie,  I  am  tired  nowr!' 

The  Border  Ruffians  in  '56  constructed  the  eccaleobion  in 
which  the  jayhawk  was  hatched,  and  it  broke  the  shell  upon  the 
reedy  shores  of  the  Marais  des  Cygnes.  Its  habits  were  not 
migratory,  and  for  many  years  its  habitat  was  Southern  Kan 
sas;  but  eventually  it  extended  its  field  of  operations  north 
ward,  and  soon  after  the  outbreak  of  the  war  was  domiciled  in 
the  gloomy  defiles  and  lonely  forests  of  the  bluffs  whose  rugged 


THE  LAST  OF  THE  JAYHAWKERS.  151* 

bastions  resist  the  assaults  of  the  Missouri  from  the  mouth  of 
the  Kaw  to  the  Nebraska  line. 

The  situation  was  favorable.  The  occasion  was  auspicious. 
The  new  State,  itself  intensely  loyal,  had  but  two  lines  of  inter 
course  with  its  Eastern  sisters — one  by  rail  and  one  by  river — 
both  under  the  control  of  enemies  who  considered  the  engulf 
ing  of  trains  through  broken  bridges,  and  the  murder  of  unsus 
pecting  passengers  upon  steamers  from  ambush  along  the 
shores,  as  honorable  warfare. 

To  the  west  and  south  extended  unpeopled  and  desolate 
solitudes,  open  to  sudden  invasion.  Hostile  camp-fires  burned 
around  the  fistulous  lakes  in  the  forests  of  Buchanan  and 
Platte,  and  the  insolent  challenge  of  the  sentinel  was  heard  at 
nightfall  upon  the  shores  of  the  deserted  river.  The  memories 
of  brutal  wrongs  were  fresh  in  the  memories  of  implacable 
sufferers. 

The  farms  and  plantations  of  that  irregular  triangle  known 
as  the  "Platte  Purchase,"  whose  hypothenuse  is  the  Missouri 
River,  abounded  in  horses  and  herds,  hogs  and  cattle — the 
accumulation  of  years  of  unexampled  prosperity.  Its  fat  soil 
nurtured  magnificent  orchards.  Its  broad  fields,  cultivated 
by  a  race  of  negroes  whose  average  intelligence  was  superior 
to  that  of  their  lazy  lords,  had  returned  incredible  yields  of 
wheat,  hemp,  and  corn.  Money  was  abundant.  Granary, 
bin,  and  larder  were  overflowing.  Spacious  mansions,  with 
airy  verandas  and  porticos,  comfortable  appurtenances  of 
barns,  sheds,  and  out-buildings,  reposed  in  the  tranquil  seclu 
sion  of  pastured  lawns,  whose  ancient  trees  cast  a  venearble 
shade  upon  the  blue-grass  sward  below. 

Indifferent  roads  and  lack  of  public  conveyances  rendered 
the  saddle  the  chief  dependence  for  local  communication,  and 


152  JOHN  JAMES 

resulted  in  a  breed  of  incomparable  riding-horses,  whose  pecu 
liar  gait,  known  as  "single-foot  rack,"  is  the  poetry  of  locomo 
tion.  A  generous  diet,  freedom  from  the  worst  cares  of  life, 
and  much  exercise  on  horseback  during  the  greater  portion  of 
the  year  had  gradually  produced  a  race  of  ruddy  and  stalwart 
men,  bold  and  turbulent  by  nature  in  youth,  but  rendered 
timid  by  wealth  and  toned  down  to  inaction  in  riper  years  by 
too  much  fat  bacon  and  "apple-jack  and  honey." 

Slavery,  as  practiced  among  them,  had  few  of  its  most 
repulsive  features;  but  its  existence  fixed  their  political  con 
victions.  So  they  put  their  sons  on  their  best  horses  and  sent 
them  South  with  plethoric  saddle-bags  to  join  the  hordes  of 
Price,  while  they  themselves  remained  at  home  upon  their 
plantations  and  avowed  their  unalterable  devotion  to  the 
Constitution  and  the  Union. 

Amid  the  convulsions  of  the  period,  and  with  the  stimulus 
of  an  unappeasable  appetite  for  vengeance,  such  an  inviting 
field  could  not  long  remain  unvisited.  The  temptation  was 
irresistible,  and  the  jayhawk  plumed  itself  for  the  quarry 
The  courts  were  closed.  The  regular  armies  were  engaged  in 
other  directions.  The  authorities  upon  either  side  were  too 
much  engrossed  to  listen  to  complaints.  The  young  men  were 
in  the  brush  or  the  camp  All  the  ordinary  avocations  of 
industry  and  the  usual  pursuits  of  life  were  at  an  end.  The 
negroes  laid  down  the  shovel  and  the  hoe,  picked  up  as  sub 
stitutes  for  the  agricultural  implements,  mules,  horses,  wag 
ons,  furniture,  beds,  bedding,  provisions,  and  simultaneously 
started  for  Kansas,  waking  the  echoes  as  they  thronged  the 
ferries  with  the  amazing  chorus,  "Oh,  we're  the  Snolligosters, 
and  we'll  all  jine  de  Union!"  In  some  instances  they  were 
pursued  by  their  former  owners,  assisted  by  their  facile  parti- 


THE  LAST  OF  THE  JAYHAWKERS.  153 

sans  in  the  land  of  refuge,  conveyed  by  night  in  skiffs  across 
the  river,  and,  after  frightful  preliminary  torture,  deliberately 
burned  to  death. 

At  this  time  patriotism  and  larceny  had  not  entirely  coal 
esced,  and  upon  the  debatable  frontier  between  these  contend 
ing  passions  appeared  a  race  of  thrifty  warriors,  whose  souls 
were  rent  with  conflicting  emotions  at  the  thought  of  their 
bleeding  country's  wrongs  and  the  available  assets  of  Missouri. 
Their  avowed  object  was  the  protection  of  the  border.  Their 
real  design  was  indiscriminate  plunder.  They  adopted  the 
name  of  "Jayhawkers." 

Conspicuous  among  the  irregular  heroes  who  thus  sprang 
to  arms  in  1861,  and  ostensibly  their  leader,  was  an  Ohio  stage- 
driver  by  the  name  of  Charles  Metz,  who,  having  graduated 
with  honor  from  the  penitentiary  of  Missouri,  assumed  from 
prudential  reasons  the  more  euphonious  and  distinguished 
appellation  of  "Cleveland."  He  was  a  picturesque  brigand. 
Had  he  worn  a  slashed  doublet  and  trunk  hose  of  black  velvet, 
he  would  have  been  the  ideal  of  an  Italian  bandit.  Young, 
erect,  and  tall,  he  was  sparely  built,  and  arrayed  himself  like 
a  gentleman  in  the  costume  of  the  day.  His  appearance  was 
that  of  a  student.  His  visage  was  thin,  his  complexion  olive- 
tinted  and  colorless,  as  if  "sicklied  o'er  with  the  pale  cast  of 
thought."  Black  piercing  eyes,  finely  cut  features,  dark  hair 
and  beard  correctly  trimmed,  completed  a  tout  ensemble  that 
was  strangely  at  variance  with  the  aspect  of  the  score  of  disso 
lute  and  dirty  desperadoes  that  formed  his  command.  These 
were  generally  degraded  ruffians  of  the  worst  type,  whose  high 
est  idea  of  elegance  in  personal  appearance  was  to  have  their 
mustaches  died  a  villainous  metallic  black,  irrespective  of  the 
consideration  whether  its  native  hue  was  red  or  brown.  It  is 


154  JOHN  JAMES  I 

a  noticeable  fact  that  a  dyed  mustache  stamps  its  wearer  inevit 
ably  either  as  a  pitiful  snob  or  an  irreclaimable  scoundrel. 

The  vicinity  of  the  fort,  with  its  troops,  rendered  Leav- 
enworth  undesirable  as  a  base  of  operations.  St.  Joseph  was 
also  heavily  garrisoned,  and  they  accordingly  selected  Atchi- 
son  as  the  point  from  which  to  move  on  the  enemy's  works. 
Atchison  at  that  time  contained  about  twenty-five  hundred 
inhabitants.  Its  business  was  transacted  upon  one  street, 
and  extended  west  about  four  blocks  from  the  river.  Its  posi 
tion  upon  the  extreme  curve  of  the  "Grand  Detour"  of  the 
Missouri  affording  unrivalled  facilities  for  escape  to  the  inte 
rior  in  the  event  of  pursuit.  Having  been  principally  settled 
by  Southerners,  it  still  afforded  much  legitimate  game  for  our 
bird  of  prev,  and  its  loyal  populaticn  having  already  largely 
enlisted,  the  city  was  incapable  of  organized  resistance  to  the 
depredations  of  the  marauders. 

They  established  their  headquarters  at  the  saloon  of  a  Ger 
man  named  Krnest  R.enner,  where  they  held  lhrir  councils  of 
war,  and  whence  they  started  upon  their  forays.  The  winter 
was  favorable  to  their  designs,  as  the  river  closed  early,  enabling 
them  to  cross  upon  the  ice.  Cleveland  proclaimed  himself 
Marshal  of  Kansas,  and  announced  his  determination  to  run 
the  country.  He  invited  the  cordial  cooperation  of  all  good 
citizens  to  assist  him  in  sustaining  the  Government  and  punish 
ing  its  foes.  Ignorant  of  his  resources  and  his  purposes,  the 
people  at  first  were  inclined  to  welcome  their  strange  guests  as 
a  protection  from  the  dangers  to  which  they  were  exposed ;  but 
it  soon  became  apparent  that  the  doctors  were  worse  than  the 
disease.  They  took  possession  of  the  town,  defied  the  munici 
pal  authorities,  and  committed  such  intolerable  excesses  that 
their  expulsion  was  a  matter  of  public  safety.  Their  incursions 


THE  LAST  OF  THE  JAYHAWKERS.  155 

into  Missouri  were  so  frequent  and  audacious  that  a  company 
of  infantry  was  sent  from  Weston  and  stationed  at  Winthrop 
to  effecttheir  capture,  but  to  no  purpose.  They  soon  ceased 
to  inquire  about  the  political  views  of  their  victims.  If  a  man 
had  an  enemy  in  any  part  of  the  country  whom  he  wished  to 
injure,  he  reported  him  to  Cleveland  as  a  rebel,  and  the  next 
night  he  was  robbed  of  all  he  possessed  and  considered  fortu 
nate  if  he  escaped  without  personal  violence.  In  some  cases, 
at  the  intercession  of  friends,  the  property  was  restored;  but 
generally  there  was  no  redress.  A  small  detachment  of  cav 
alry  was  sent  from  the  fort  to  take  them,  but  just  as  they  had 
dismounted  in  front  of  the  saloon  and  were  hitching  their 
horses,  Cleveland  appeared  at  the  door  with  a  cocked  navy  in 
each  hand  and  told  them  he  would  shoot  the  first  man  that 
moved  a  finger.  Calling  two  or  three  of  his  followers,  he.  dis 
armed  the  dragoons,  took  their  horses  and  equipments,  and 
sent  them  back  on  foot  to  reflect  upon  the  vicissitudes  of 
military  affairs. 

Early  in  1862  the  condition  became  desperate,  and  the  city 
authorities,  in  connection  with  the  commander  at  Winthrop, 
concerted  a  scheme  which  brought  matters  to  a  crisis.  Cleve 
land  and  about  a  dozen  of  his  gang  were  absent  in  Missouri  on 
a  scout.  The  time  of  their  return  was  known,  and  Marshal 
Holbert  had  his  forces  stationed  in  the  shadow  of  an  old  ware 
house  near  the  bank  of  the  river.  It  was  a  brilliant  moonlight 
night  in  midwinter.  The  freebooters  emerged  form  the  forest 
and  crossed  upon  the  ice.  They  were  freshly  mounted,  and 
each  one  had  a  spare  horse.  Accompanying  them  were  two 
sleighs  loaded  with  negroes,  harness,  and  miscellaneous  plun 
der.  As  they  ascended  the  steep  shore  of  the  levee,  uncon 
scious  of  danger,  they  were  all  taken  prisoners,  except  Cleve- 


156  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

land,  who  turned  suddenly,  spurred  his  horse  down  the  em 
bankment,  and  escaped.  The  captives  were  taken  to  Wes- 
ton,  where  they  soon  afterward  enlisted  in  the  Federal  Army. 
The  next  day  Cleveland  rode  into  town,  captured  the  City  Mar 
shal  on  the  street,  and  declared  his  intention  to  hold  him  as  a 
hostage  for  the  safety  of  his  men.  He  compelled  the  Marshal 
to  walk  by  the  side  of  his  horse  a  short  distance,  when,  finding  a 
crowd  gathering  for  his  capture,  he  struck  him  a  blow  on  the 
head  with  his  pistol  and  fled.  He  continued  his  exploits  for 
some  months,  but  was  finally  driven  to  bay  in  one  of  the  south 
ern  counties,  and,  attempting  to  let  himself  down  the  side  of  a 
precipitous  ravine,  was  shot  by  a  soldier  from  above,  the  ball 
entering  under  his  arm  and  passing  through  his  body.  His 
temporary  widow  took  his  sacred  clay  to  St.  Joseph,  where  its 
place  of  interment  is  marked  by  a  marble  headstone  bearing 
the  usual  memoranda,  and  concluding  with  the  following: 

"One  hero  less  on  earth, 
One  angel  more  in  heaven!" 

The  unreliable  character  of  grave -stone  literature  has  been 
the  theme  of  frequent  comment,  but  unless  this  ostensible 
eulogy  was  intended  as  a  petrified  piece  of  jocularity  and  gra 
tuitously  inscribed  by  the  sculptor,  it  may,  perhaps,  be  justly 
considered  the  most  liberal  application  of  the  maxim,  "Nil  de 
moriuis  nisi  bonuw,"  to  be  found  in  anv  American  cemeterv 


THE  "GOOD-FELLOW  GIRL.'' 


The  doctrines  of  female  suffrage  and  the  equality  of  the 
sexes  are  undermining  the  foundations  of  our  social  structure. 
Their  advocates  call  it  reform.  It  seems  more  like  revolution. 
They  are  substituting  the  hotel  and  the  club  for  the  home, 
comradeship  for  marriage,  and  Bohemianism  for  domestic  life. 
With  wealth,  leisure,  and  luxury  they  are  establishing  a  social 
code  that  demands  fidelity  only  to  those  who  are  faithless  and 
that  forgives  everything  in  a  woman  except  old-fashioned 
goodness. 

The  recent  records  of  the  divorce  courts  in  New  York  and 
all  our  great  cities  justify  the  apprehension  that  quite  as  many 
of  the  fair  sex  are  unjustly  suspected  of  innocence  as  are  falsely 
accused  of  wrong-doing.  It  is  commonly  said  that  the  world 
is  growing  better.  Probably  it  is — in  spots.  There  are  many 
good  people  who  pay  tithes  of  anise  atonement  and  contrition 
Sunday  and  forget  the  weightier  matters  of  the  law  every  other 
day  in  the  week. 

Universities,  colleges,  libraries,  and  museums  are  endowed 
by  contributions  to  the  conscience  fund  from  the  death-bed 
repentance  of  contrite  pirates  and  extortioners  who,  having 
burned  the  candle  to  Mammon  all  their  lives,  blow  the  snuff  in 
the  face  of  the  Lord.  This  is  morally  the  most  corrupt  and 
greedy  age  since  Nero  played  first  violin  at  the  burning  of 
Rome. 

157 


X58  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Those  who  have  seen  the  frescoes  and  sculptures  of  Pompeii 
can  comprehend  why  that  composite  heap  was  buried  under 
the  cinders  and  ashes  of  Vesuvius ;  why  the  site  of  Sodom  and 
Gomorrah  is  forgotten;  why  ancient  Corinth  was  despoiled 
and  its  inhabitants  extirpated.  There  was  no  other  medicine 
for  such  depravity  and  degradation.  Most  travellers  who 
know  the  gin-mills  of  London  by  sight  and  have  walked  the 
Strand  after  nightfall,  or  have  visited  the  Moulin  Rouge,  or 
witnessed  the  viciousness  of  Berlin  and  Vienna  and  Venice, 
know  that  every  capital  in  Europe  can  give  odds  to  Pompeii 
and  Corinth. 

A  fatal  contagion  infects  our  society  and  portends  individ 
ual  degeneration  and  national  decay.  No  nation  can  long 
survive  a  loss  of  moral  integrity  or  the  sanctity  of  the  home. 
No  one  can  observe  without  alarm  the  invasion  of  our  country 
by  this  foreign  pestilence  and  the  amazing  changes  that  are 
going  on  in  the  social  condition.  A  deluge  of  French  and  Eng 
lish  sewage  is  polluting  literature,  art,  and  the  stage.  Plays 
glorifying  infidelity,  making  marriage  a  jest,  and  sneering  at 
virtue  as  rustic  prudery  are  supplemented  by  numberless  sex 
and  problem  novels  that  treat  Nature's  holiest  mysteries  with 
the  brutal  candor  of  the  clinic  and  the  dissecting- table. 
Eager,  thronging  multitudes  listen  to  such  plays  as  "The 
Degenerates,"  "Sapho,"  and  "The  Turtle." 

It  is  unfortunate,  from  a  moral  standpoint,  that  the  best 
of  mankind  are  not  invulnerable.  There  is  no  armor  proof 
against  temptation.  It  is  still  more  discouraging  that  good 
people  are  generally  uninteresting  and  that  we  remember  with 
most  pleasure  the  persons  and  events  we  ought  to  forget.  It 
is  a  prodigious  task  to  lift  a  man,  a  community  from  barbarism 
into  enlightenment  and  civilization,  and  a  still  greater  task  to 


THE  "  GOOD-FEU/) w  GIRU"  159 

keep  him  or  it  there.  The  tendency  is  to  relapse.  The  grav 
itation  is  to  the  gutter.  It  requires  the  constant  active  coop 
eration  of  the  conservative  forces  of  religion,  education,  laws, 
habits,  and  customs  to  maintain  even  external  order  and 
decency. 

Break  down  the  barriers  of  modesty  and  shame  in'woman, 
teach  the  young  that  the  distinction  between  right  and  wrong 
is  an  inversion  of  theology,  that  conscience  is  an  impertinent 
interference  with  the  natural  enjoyment  of  life,  that  vice  wears 
velvet  and  virtue  goes  in  rags,  and  the  evil  is  irreparable. 
This  is  the  fatal  process  that  is  now  going  on  through  the 
decadence  of  art,  literature,  and  the  stage. 

It  is  developing  a  type  of  womanhood  of  which  Helen  of 
Troy,  and  Cleopatra,  and  Messalina  are  historic  represent 
atives — the  woman  of  the  world,  the  up-to-date  woman,  the 
end-of-the-century  woman,  the  jolly  "good-fellow  girl,"  who 
goes  to  the  races  with  one  man,  and  bets,  drinks  cocktails, 
smokes  cigarettes,  and  goes  to  midnight  suppers  with  another, 
and  is  introduced  to  pugilists  by  a  third,  and  listens  to  innuen 
does,  double  entendres,  and  unprintable  stories. 

Such  is  the  extreme  nineteenth-century  protest  against 
Puritanism.  The  home  is  the  unit  of  the  State,  and  the 
social  law  hitherto  has  been  that  woman's  proper  place  is 
home — not  as  a  slave  or  a  drudge,  but  as  a  companion,  col 
league,  and  spiritual  guardian;  walking  a  path  not  of  roses, 
but  of  love,  faith,  and  duty,  and  supreme  in  that  kingdom. 
The  properly  reared  and  educated  young  woman  anticipates 
marriage  and  maternity  as  her  natural  destiny.  The  race 
track,  midnight  revelries,  high  kicking,  skirt-dancing,  and 
"coon"  songs  are  not  favorable  preliminaries. 


160  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Even  the  most  sated  and  cynical  of  men  in  their  better 
intervals  turn  reverently  to  the  higher  ideal  of  the 

"Perfect  woman,  nobly  planned, 
To  warn,  to  comfort,  and  command; 
But  yet  a  spirit  still  and  bright, 
With  something  of  an  angel  light." 


THE  ANNEXATION  OF  HAWAII. 


(Written  immediately  after  President  McKinley  sent  the  Hawaiian  Treaty 
to  the  Senate,  June  16,  1897.) 

Midway  between  the  Golden  Gate  and  Yokohama,  but  far 
outside  a  line  drawn  from  the  northwestern  to  the  southwest 
ern  extremities  of  the  Republic,  lies  the  archipelago  known  on 
the  map  as  the  Sandwich  Islands,  set  like  a  cluster  of  gems  in 
the  immeasurable  azure  of  the  Pacific,  where  one  hundred 
years  ago  Captain  Cook  found  half  a  million  natives  living  in  a 
state  of  feudal  communism,  without  laws  or  morals  or  indus 
try,  their  simple  wants  supplied  by  Nature  beneath  a  sky  that 
was  cloudless,  and  in  a  year  that  had  no  winter. 

Civilization  bequeaths  to  weaker  races  only  its  vices. 
The  Indian,  the  Negro,  the  Chinese,  the  Hindoo,  the  Polyne 
sian,  are  illustrations  of  the  blessings  which  Christian  nations 
bestow  upon  their  victims.  Since  1778,  the  date  of  discovery, 
the  native  population,  under  the  benign  influences  of  alcohol 
and  disease,  has  constantly  declined  till  but  a  fraction  remains. 
In  the  twenty-five  years  following  the  landing  of  Cook  fully 
one-half  of  the  original  inhabitants  perished  from  these  causes, 
and  the  diminution  has  since  steadily  progressed.  Their  final 
extinction  or  absorption  is  the  decree  of  destiny. 

The  fertile  lands,  the  harbors,  the  political  functions, 
meanwhile  have  been  acquired  by  foreigners,  who  control  the 
commerce,  the  agriculture,  and  the  government  of  the  islands, 
and  desire  to  make  them  a  colony,  a  territory,  -or  a  dependency 

161 


1 62  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

of  the  United  States.  Treaties  to  this  end  have  repeatedly 
been  considered,  and  the  latest  is  now  pending  (June,  1897) 
for  ratification  by  the  Senate. 

It  must  be  conceded  that  our  policy  hitherto  has  been 
strictly  continental  from  the  beginning.  We  have  rejected 
all  efforts  to  extend  our  boundaries  outside  the  North  Amer 
ican  continent.  We  have  permitted  the  other  great  Powers 
to  establish  naval  stations  in  the  West  Indies,  which  are  a 
menace  to  every  seaport  upon  our  Atlantic  coast.  The  hun 
ger  for  the  horizon  seemed  to  have  been  satiated,  but  the 
instinct  for  conquest,  which  is  such  a  powerful  passion  in  our 
race,  has  been  inactive,  not  because  it  was  extinct,  but  because 
we  had  enough.  The  Louisiana  and  Florida  Purchase,  the 
annexation  of  Texas,  the  robbery  of  Mexico,  satisfied  from 
time  to  time  the  appetite  of  the  pioneer.  But  at  last  we  have 
abolished  the  frontier  and  subjugated  the  desert.  The  public 
domain  is  exhausted.  The  struggle  for  life  is  becoming  more 
intense.  Competition  is  more  bitter  and  strenuous.  Society 
is  now  in  a  hand-to-hand  contest  with  the  destructive  forces 
which  civilization  itself  has  engendered,  and  it  is  evident  that 
we  are  entering  a  new  epoch  in  our  history.  If  we  do  not  prey 
upon  others,  we  may  prey  upon  ourselves. 

The  indications  also  are  that  England,  France,  Spain,  Ger 
many,  and  Russia  are  yielding  to  the  time-spirit  which  mani 
fests  itself  in  the  sullen  discontent  of  the  poor  and  the  fatal 
satiety  of  the  rich,  and  seeking  new.  fields  for  adventure  and 
new  markets  for  trade. 

We  have  come  in  the  United  States  to  the  fork  of  the  roads. 
Our  industrial  competitors  and  rivals  have  entered  upon  a 
career  of  stupendous  rapacity.  In  Africa,  Asia,  China,  the 
Philippines,  in  every  abode  of  inferior  races,  they  are  engaged 


THE  ANNEXATION  OF  HAWAII.  163 

in  schemes  of  plunder  and  depredation  as  savage  and  brutal 
as  the  ravages  of  the  Huns  or  the  descent  of  the  Goths  and 
Vandals. 

Directly  in  the  pathway  of  our  commerce  with  Australia, 
the  Orientals,  and  the  Northern  Pacific,  the  inevitable  route 
of  the  ocean  cable,  the  rendezvous  of  fleets  and  navies,  lies  this 
little  insular  domain  whose  fate  within  the  next  thirty  days 
is  to  be  determined  by  the  votes  of  ninety  men  behind  the 
closed  gates  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  That  the 
Sandwich  Islands  will  belong  to  us  or  to  some  unfriendly  power 
in  the  immediate  future  may  be  taken  for  granted.  They  can 
not  stand  alone.  They  have  neither  the  population  nor  the 
wealth  to  hold  their  own  in  the  family  of  nations. 

The  fundamental  question  before  the  American  people, 
therefore,  is  not  so  much  whether  it  will  be  to  our  advantage  to 
annex  them,  as  to  whether  it  will  be  to  our  disadvantage  to 
have  England  annex  them;  whether  with  thirty-five  hundred 
miles  of  vulnerable  frontier  on  the  north,  with  the  fortifications 
of  Halifax  and  Vancouver  at  either  end  on  the  Atlantic  and 
Pacific,  we  can  afford  to  have  this  blustering  ruffian  of  the 
world  build  another  Gibraltar  in  mid-ocean,  where  her  ships 
•can  assemble  and  menace  our  sea-front  from  the  Columbia 
River  to  the  Nicaragua  Canal. 

It  needs  no  soothsayer  to  predict  that  the  next  theatre 
of  industrial  and  commercial  activity  will  be  in  the  Eastern 
Hemisphere.  The  unprecedented  energy  of  Japan,  the  exten 
sion  of  the  Russian  railroad  system  through  the  Asiatic  Con 
tinent,  and  the  subsequent  development  of  its  navy  and  com 
mercial  marine,  the  gold  exodus  of  the  valley  of  the  Yukon, 
the  enormous  value  of  the  forests  and  fisheries  of  the  North 
west,  and  the  new  highways  and  centers  of  exchange  that 


164  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

will  result  from  the  completion  of  the  Isthmus  Canal,  and  the 
practical  partition  of  China  with  its  four  hundred  million 
inhabitants,  unerringly  point  to  a  revolution  that  will  make 
the  twentieth  century  the  most  marvelous  in  the  annals  of 
mankind. 

In  this  great  theatre  of  action  Hawaii  is  a  focal  point 
of  transcendent  importance.  It  is  the  key  of  the  Pacific. 
That  the  treaty  of  annexation  is  opposed  to  the  traditions 
of  the  Republic  can  be  conceded.  But  we  .are  opening  a 
new  volume  in  the  world's  history.  The  westward  path 
of  empire  has  made  the  circle  of  the  globe,  and  it  must  retrace 
its  footsteps  or  go  on  to  the  goal  whence  it  started.  New 
times  demand  new  manners  and  new  men.  Tradition  was 
opposed  to  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  by  Jefferson  from 
Napoleon ;  to  the  acquisition  of  Florida ;  to  the  Alaskan  treaty 
with  Russia.  There  was  no  warrant  in  the  Constitution  for 
either,  but  they  were  sanctioned  by  public  opinion.  Alaska  is 
not  contiguous  to  our  territory,  and  the  Klondike  is  prac 
tically  more  remote  than  Honolulu.  \Yith  cable  communica 
tion,  which  will  soon  be  established,  the  question  of  distance 
will  disappear,  the  ocean  will  be  no  barrier,  and  time  will  be 
annihilated. 

The  suggestion  that  the  people  of  Hawaii  are  not  in  favor 
of  annexation,  and  that  the  existing  Government  is  a  usurpa 
tion,  is  not  borne  out  by  any  facts  that  have  appeared  since 
Mr.  Cleveland's  ludicrous  effort  to  lower  the  American  flag  and 
restore  the  monarchy  by  diplomatic  methods  that  would  have 
disgraced  a  rural  pettifogger  in  an  attempt  to  secure  fictitious 
co-respondents  in  a  divorce  case. 

The  constitutional  difficulty  of  establishing  some  form  of 
government  not  inconsistent  with  our  institutions  is  more 


THE  ANNEXATION  OF  HAWAII.  165 

fanciful  than  real.  It  could  be  made  a  county  of  the  State 
of  California,  with  the  consent  of  that  commonwealth.  It 
could  be  attached  for  judicial  and  municipal  purposes,  under 
the  same  conditions,  to  Oregon  or  Washnigton.  It  is  fur 
ther  out  than  the  Isles  of  Shoals  from  New  Hampshire,  or 
Nantucket  from  Massachusetts,  but  the  conditions  are  the 
same.  It  could  be  declared  a  military  reservation,  or  it  might 
be  governed  by  commissioners  under  a  code  like  the  District 
of  Columbia.  It  would  not  be  indispensable  for  the  pres 
ervation  of  liberty  and  self-government  that  Hawaii  should 
be  admitted  into  the  Union  as  a  separate  and  independent 
State. 

Mr.  James  Bryce  has  written  an  article  for  The  Forum 
upon  "The  Policy  of  Annexation  for  America,"  in  which 
he  expresses  the  opinion  that  we  should  not  increase  our 
territory  nor  enlarge  our  navy,  nor  incorporate  populations 
not  homogeneous  and  similar.  He  fears  we  might  be  com 
pelled  to  maintain  two  powerful  fleets,  one  in  the  Pacific  and 
one  in  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  to  defend  Cuba  and  Hawaii  from 
foreign  attack,  if,  as  he  is  apprehensive  we  may,  we  should 
annex  these  islands.  He  deprecates  the  "earth  hunger" 
which  rages  among  European  states,  and  hopes  we  will  wait 
until  the  appetites  are  fully  satiated.  This  eminent  Eng 
lishman  is  the  author  of  an  exceedingly  valuable  and  inter 
esting  work  on  "The  American  Commonwealth,"  and  the  peo 
ple  of  the  United  States  will  greatly  appreciate  his  solicitude 
for  their  welfare.  The  information  he  conveys  as  to  our  "mis 
sion"  is  also  novel  and  instructive,  and  will  have  great  weight 
in  determining  our  conduct  in  the  future.  His  advice  con 
cerning  our  duty  and  our  policy  in  this  crisis  ought  to  be  the 
subject  of  early  consideration  by  the  President  and  his  Cabi- 


1 66  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

net,  lest  we  descend  from  our  pedestal  of  "wise  and  pacific 
detachment,"  whatever  that  may  be. 

The  Professor  is  wiser  in  his  day  and  generation  than 
the  children  of  light.  His  attitude  of  lofty  and  patronizing 
superiority  from  any  other  source  would  seem  like  unwar 
ranted  and  insufferable  impertinence.  Coming  from  a  cit 
izen  of  the  nation  which  has  habitually  trampled  on  the 
rights  of  the  feeble  and  helpless  in  the  four  quarters  of  the 
earth,  the  chartered  bully  of  the  seas,  it  has  elements  of 
the  grotesque.  He  admits  incautiously  that  the  "fancy  for 
coloring  new  territories  British  on  the  map"  has  had  some 
thing  to  do  with  these  recent  extensions  of  British  authority,, 
but  feels  that  it  would  be  unfortunate  should  the  United  States 
be  led  into  any  similar  courses.  Quite  so,  Professor.  But 
the  analysis  which  detects  in  the  annexation  of  Hawaii  any 
any  resemblance  to  the  subjugation  and  plunder  of  India, 
or  the  Rhodes  conspiracy  in  South  Africa,  is  neither  philo 
sophical  nor  accurate.  It  lacks  perspective.  Should  Profes 
sor  Jones,  of  Harvard,  or  Professor  Smith,  of  Chicago  Uni 
versity,  print  in  The  Nineteenth  Century  such  a  lecture  to 
the  people  of  England  on  their  mission,  their  duty,  and  their 
policy,  it  would  be  treated  with  contemptuous  derision  as  an 
ill-mannered  exhibition  of  Yankee  impudence. 

Of  course,  if  we  take  Hawaii,  we  must  keep  it.  That 
goes  without  saying.  If  it  is  attacked,  we  must  defend  it. 
By  fleets  and  fortresses  we  must  make  it  impregnable.  All 
this  is  implied.  If  we  get  down  from  the  pedestal  on  which 
the  Professor  has  placed  us,  and  enter  into  competition  for 
markets  for  our  surplus  products  and  areas  for  our  sur 
plus  population,  we  must  go  armed.  Bibles  and  mission 
aries  and  missals  and  treaties  of  arbitration  will  not  do. 


THE  ANNEXATION  OF  HAWAII.  167 

We  talk  of  Christian  civilization,  but  when  the  Venezuela 
boundary  question  was  [up  a  few  months  ago,  the  passion 
of  the  people  broke  out  into  a  hoarse  roar  for  blood.  Gen 
eral  Schurz  points  out  the  danger  in  Harper's  Weekly.  His 
experience  as  a  soldier  gives  his  opinion  great  value.  He 
never  believed  in  taking  any  risks.  He  regards  our  position 
now  as  safe,  and  shrinks  from  exposure.  He  is  courageous 
enough,  however,  to '  admit]  that  Hawaii  can  be  defended  if 
the  people  are  willing  to  pay^the  bills.  This  is  the  opinion 
also  of  the  retail  grocer  and  the  proprietor  of  the  ninety- 
nine-cent  bargain-counter. 

Speaker  Reed  says  we  can  wait.  So  we  can.  The  trouble 
is  that  the  other  nations  will  not  wait.  The  Speaker  has 
not  in  other  emergencies  been  wanting  in  aggression.  Pa 
tience  is  one  of  the  cardinal  virtues,  but  the  Speaker  has 
not  been  a  companion  of  Job  hitherto.  His  great  fame  has 
derived  none  of  its  lustre  from  patience.  He  says  there  is 
no  need  of  hurry  in  aggrandizement,  and  that  as  we  grow 
we  will  spread  fast  enough,  which  is  perspicacious;  as  we 
grow  older  we  shall  increase  in  years.  It  has  been  said  that 
everything  comes  to  him  who  waits,  but  this  is  not  true 
of  nations.  Of  them  it  may  be  said,  as  of  the  Kingdom  of 
Heaven,  that  the  violent  take  it  by  force. 

From  the  economic  standpoint,  the  soil  of  Hawaii  is  fer 
tile,  the  climate  incomparable.  To  its  spontaneous  prod 
ucts  have  been  added  sugar,  potatoes,  indigo,  coffee,  and 
wool.  It  can  readily  support  a  population  of  a  million  and 
afford  large  customs  and  excise  revenues  to  the  Government 
far  beyond  any  possible  cost  of  maintenance.  Mingling 
with  the  large  patriotic  and  strategic  considerations  is  the 
sugar  tariff,  which  may  at  last  be  the  decisive  factor  in 


1 68  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  vote  on  the  treaty.  The  Dingley  Bill,  by  increasing 
the  duty  on  sugar,  has  stimulated  the  culture  of  the  sugar 
beet,  especially  in  the  semi-arid  and  upland  regions  of  the 
West,  where  agricultural  depression  has  been  most  severe 
and  disastrous,  and  political  aberration  most  excessive. 
Never  much  enamored  with  high  duties  hitherto,  these 
interests  have  now  organized  a  formidable  opposition  to 
Hawaiian  annexation  on  the  ground  that  free  cane  sugar 
will  interfere  injuriously  with  the  infant  beet  sugar  indus 
try.  And  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  same  sentiment 
is  supporting  the  Spaniards  in  the  Cuban  insurrection.  That 
the  senators  from  the  West  will  be  wholly  insensible  to  these 
influences  is  not  to  be  expected.  It  would  not  be  creditable 
if  they  were.  They  represent  their  constituencies  as  well 
as  the  Nation.  '  The  future  of  parties  is  uncertain,  and  in 
the  contests  for  succession  they  must  reconcile  conflicting 
interests  and  appeal  to  that  public  opinion  which  is  the  tri 
bunal  of  last  resort.  It  would  be  strange,  but  not  unprec 
edented,  if,  after  all,  the  fate  of  the  Treaty  of  Annexation 
and  the  Reciprocity  Treaty,  under  which  for  several  years 
sugar  has  been  admitted  free  of  duty,  should  hinge  upon 
matters  relatively  of  little  more  consequence  than  the  reck 
oning  of  a  tapster's  arithmetic. 

They  will  do  well  to  remember  that  for  nations,  as  for 

men, 

"Emulation  has  a  thousand  sons 
That  one  by  one  pursue.     If  you  give  way, 
Like  to  an  entered  tide,  they  all  rush  by 
And  leave  you  hindmost." 


A  NATION'S  GENESIS. 


The  genesis  of  other  nations  has  been  legendary  and 
obscure.  They  have  had  an  unrecorded  infancy  and  child 
hood  of  fable  and  mythology.  Their  dawn  has  emerged 
from  a  dim  twilight  peopled  with  vague  shadows  and  phan 
toms,  gods  and  giants  and  heroes  whose  loves  and  wars  are 
written  in  the  Iliad  and  odes  of  race.  But  there  is  no  Rom 
ulus  and  Remus  business  about  the  United  States  of  America ; 
none  of  its  founders  were  suckled  by  wolves  on  the  banks 
of  the  James  or  the  inhospitable  shores  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 

The  forty  thousand  Englishmen  who  migrated  to  Virginia 
and  New  England  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century 
are  no  strangers.  We  know  their  names,  where  they  were 
born,  why  they  came,  the  day  and  hour  they  landed,  and 
what  they  did  when  they  set  foot  on  shore.  We  know,  for 
they  have  told  us,  that  Massachusetts  was  discovered  by 
accident  and  settled  by  mistake. 

The  Pilgrims  did  not  intend  to  land  at  Plymouth,  and 
they  would  not  have  remained  there  could  they  have  gotten 
away.  They  sailed  for  the  Hudson,  and  after  a  tempestuous 
voyage  of  more  than  two  months,  the  Mayflower  anchored 
off  Cape  Cod. 

From  November  9  till  December  22  they  explored  the 
sunless  sea,  and  then,  landing  on  Plymouth  Rock,  founded 
the  famous  colony  without  the  knowledge  of  the  corporation 

169 


1 70  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

that  claimed  the  territory,  and  without  the  sanction  of  the 
Government  by  which  it  was  chartered.  They  were  neither 
much  better  nor  much  worse  than  the  average  American 
citizen  to-day.  No  doubt  they  wanted  the  right  to  worship 
God  according  to  the  dictates  of  their  own  conscience;  but 
six  days  in  the  week  they  had  an  incredibly  keen  eye  for 
the  main  chance. 

Those  sombre  exiles  brought  in  their  cargo  many  things 
that  did  not  appear  in  the  invoice.  They  unloaded  from 
their  shallop  the  elements  of  a  civilization  the  most  rapa 
cious,  the  most  arrogant,  the  most  relentless  ever  known 
in  the  history  of  mankind.  Those  who  signed  their  names 
to  the  compact  of  government  in  that  dingy  cabin  released 
social  and  political  ideas  of  inconceivable  energy,  self-govern 
ment,  liberty  of  conscience,  universal  education.  The  same 
spirit  that  penned  that  charter  wrote  the  Declaration  of  In 
dependence,  the  Constitution,  the  Proclamation  of  Emanci 
pation,  guided  the  pen  of  Lincoln,  unsheathed  the  sword  of 
Grant,  trained  the  guns  of  Dewey  at  Manila,  and  created  the 
splendor  and  opulence  and  power  of  the  civilization  of  the 
nineteenth  century. 

The  prescriptions  of  these  pioneers  were  simple.  They 
were  neither  dreamers  nor  doctrinaires  nor  philosophers. 
They  were  not  perplexed  with  theories  nor  abstractions. 
They  were  tired  of  kings.  They  were  fatigued  with  hered 
itary  distinctions  of  rank  and  birth  and  station.  They  re 
solved  to  build  a  state  in  which  all  men  should  be  polit 
ically  equal.  For  the  divine  right  of  kings  they  substituted 
the  sovereignty  of  the  people.  In  the  place  of  prerogatives 
and  privilege  for  the  few  they  put  equal  opportunities  for 
all.  Thev  determined  to  secure  the  universal  diffusion  of 


A  NATION'S  GENESIS.  171 

social  and  political  rights  among  all  citizens,  accompanied 
by  sufficient  guarantees  for  the  protection  of  life,  the  secu 
rity  of  property,  the  preservation  of  liberty.  They  pro 
jected  that  the  means  of  education  should  be  co-extensive 
with  the  desire  to  know,  and  that  the  conditions  of  happiness 
should  be  commensurate  with  the  capacity  to  enjoy. 

Anniversaries  are  the  exclamation  points  of  history.  The 
mind  takes  mysterious  pleasure  in  their  return.  The  birth 
day  of  a  hero  recalls  him  from  the  tomb  and  he  lives  again 
in  the  souls  of  millions  who  rehearse  his  triumphs  and  deplore 
his  death. 

Upon  the  dial-plate  of  nations  centuries  are  the  hours, 
and  although  the  twentieth  century  does  not  begin  until 
January  i,  1901,  it  is  not  inappropriate  to  recount  the  vast 
achievement  of  democratic  principles  in  the  hundred  years 
now  drawing  to  their  close. 

It  is  certain  that  in  1800  the  most  sanguine  advocates  of 
democracy  had  no  premonition  of  the  coming  grandeur  and 
glory  of  the  Republic.  Its  area  was  then  much  less  than 
one  million  square  miles,  which  was  more  than  doubled  in 
1803  by  the  sudden  and  unauthorized  acquisition  of  the 
Louisiana  Territory  from  Napoleon,  and  has  since  been  in 
creased  by  purchase  and  conquest  to  three  and  a  half  millions, 
exclusive  of  our  possessions  in  the  West  Indies  and  the  Pacific. 

It  is  far  within  bounds  to  say  that  humanity  has  made 
greater  progress  in  the  last  hundred  years  than  in  all  the  six 
thousand  that  preceded. 

In  everything  that  makes  life  rich  and  valuable  and  worth 
living  for,  health,  comfort,  beauty  and  happiness,  the  hum 
blest  artisan  enjoys  what  kings  could  not  purchase  with 
their  treasures  a  century  ago. 


172  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

When  John  I.  Blair,  who  died  a  few  weeks  ago  at  ninety- 
seven,  was  born,  it  took  longer  to  go  from  Boston  to  Wash 
ington  than  it  does  now  to  travel  from  New  York  to  San 
Francisco,  and  cost  half  as  much  to  make  the  journey. 
There  were  no  railroads  nor  steamboats  nor  telegraphs  nor 
telephones.  The  only  means  of  public  conveyance  were 
stage-coaches,  sailing  vessels,  and  canal-boats.  Communi 
cation  by  mail  was  equally  costly  and  uncertain.  Cincin 
nati  and  St.  Louis  were  frontier  outposts,  and  the  name  of 
Chicago  was  not  written  in  the  gazettes.  There  was  not 
a  friction  match  in  the  world.  Fire,  the  indispensable  min 
ister  of  civilization,  was  preserved  by  being  covered  in  the 
ashes  at  night  or  struck  from  the  flint  and  steel  into  tinder. 
Illumination  was  by  candles.  Electricity  for  light,  heat, 
and  power  was  unknown.  The  awful  horrors  of  surgery 
and  the  pangs  of  death  had  not  been  mitigated  by  chloroform. 
Intelligent  sanitation  and  scientific  nutrition  had  not  been 
discovered.  The  typewriter,  the  sewing-machine,  and  agri 
cultural  machinery  were  phantoms  of  hope.  Every  acre  of 
grain  was  sowed  broadcast,  reaped  by  the  sickle,  and  threshed 
by  the  "dull  thunder  of  the  alternate  flail." 

It  is  difficult  to  conceive  the  conditions  and  incidents 
of  existence  when  John  I.  Blair  was  born,  and  incredible 
that  the  span  of  a  single  life  should  include  these  miracles 
of  discovery  and  invention  by  which  earth  has  been  robbed 
of  its  secrets  and  the  skies  of  their  mysteries. 

The  mind  is  bewildered  by  the  contemplation  of  its  mar 
velous  achievements  in  the  nineteenth  century. 

If  time  and  space  signified  now  what  they  did  in  1800, 
the  United  States  could  not  exist  under  one  government. 
It  would  not  be  possible  to  maintain  unity  of  purpose  or 


A  NATION'S  GENKSIS.  173 

identity  of  interest  between  communities  separated  by  such 
inseparable  barriers  as  Oregon  and  Florida.  But  time  and 
distance  are  arbitrary  terms,  one  depending  on  the  trans 
mission  of  thought,  the  other  on  the  transit  of  ourselves  and 
our  commodities,  our  manufactures  and  our  harvests.  The 
continent  has  shrunk  to  a  span.  The  oceans  are  obliterated. 
London  and  Paris  and  Peking  and  New  York  are  next-door 
neighbors. 

These  vast  accomplishments  of  our  race  have  rendered 
democracy  possible.  Steam,  electricity,  and  machinery  have 
emancipated  millions  and  left  them  free  to  pursue  higher 
ranges  of  effort.  Labor  has  become  more  remunerative.  The 
flood  of  wealth  has  raised  myriads  to  comfort  and  many  to 
affluence. 

A.  D.  2000  seems  remote,  but  the  interval  will  pass  like 
a  vision  in  the  night  when  one  awaketh.  He  who  shall  tell 
its  story  to  the  eager,  listening  multitudes  that  distant  morn 
ing  may  possibly  assure  them  that  the  encroachments  of 
capital  have  been  restrained  and  that  labor  has  its  just  re 
ward;  that  the  rich  are  no  longer  afflicted  with  satiety  nor 
the  poor  with  discontent;  that  we  have  wealth  without  osten 
tation,  liberty  without  license,  taxation  without  oppression, 
the  broadest  education,  and  the  least  corruption  of  manners. 
Perhaps  not.  He  can  hardly  record  any  great  additional  vic 
tories  over  Nature,  unless  it  be  aerial  navigation.  We  have 
conquered  the  earth  and  the  sea.  Some  twentieth  century 
Edison  may  conquer  the  atmosphere. 


A  DREAM  OF  EMPIRE. 


It  is  no  brag  nor  vaunt  nor  empty  boast  to  affirm  that 
the  human  race  since  1800  has  advanced  further  into  civ 
ilization — the  sum  of  moral  and  material  progress  of  man 
kind — than  in  the  six  thousand  years  which  preceded.  The 
American  citizen  of  three  score  and  ten  has  lived  longer  in 
•everything  that  makes  life  worth  living  than  Methuselah  in 
all  his  tranquil,  stagnant  centuries. 

When  Senator  Morrill,  of  Vermont,  and  Secretary  Thomp 
son,  of  Indiana,  were  born,  early  in  the  century,  of  all  those 
appliances,  devices,  inventions,  and  discoveries  that  have  an 
nihilated  space  and  time,  made  gravitation,  heat,  light,  and 
electricity  the  slaves  of  man,  abolished  pain,  revolutionized 
industry,  and  indefinitely  enlarged  the  boundaries  of  human 
happiness,  not  one  existed. 

There  was  no  railroad  nor  telegraph;  no  telephone,  no 
typewriter  nor  sewing-machine ;  no  chloroform  nor  photogra 
phy.  Every  acre  of  grain  was  sowed  broadcast ;  reaped  with 
the  sickle  and  the  cradle,  and  threshed  with  the  "dull  thunder 
of  the  alternate  flail."  Friction  matches  were  unknown.  Fire, 
the  indispensable  agent  of  civilization,  was  started  by  strik 
ing  sparks  from  flint  and  steel  into  tinder,  and  preserved  by 
covering  coals  in  the  ashes  at  night.  Kings,  with  their  treas 
uries,  could  not  obtain  the  comforts  and  conveniences  in  their 
palaces  which  the  most  parsimonious  landlord  now  furnishes 

174 


A  DREAM  OF  EMPIRE.  175 

without  question  for  the  unpretent  ous  cottage  of  the  black 
smith  and  the  carpenter.  Life  seems  quite  inconceivable  un 
der  the  conditions  of  1 800,  and  we  reflect  with  incredulity  that 
now  no  triumph  over  Nature  remains  to  be  won  except  the 
conquest  of  the  sky. 

One  hundred  years  ago  the  Mississippi,  from  the  mouth 
of  Red  River  to  the  Lake  of  the  Woods,  was  geographically 
the  western  frontier  of  the  United  States.  Historically,  the 
pioneers  of  Ohio  and  the  Northwestern  Territory  and  the 
unborn  States  of  Indiana  and  Illinois  were  descending  the 
declivity  of  the  Appalachian  Mountains  and  disappearing  in 
the  forests  whose  solitudes  extended  from  Fort  Dearborn  to 
Natchez. 

Beyond  the  Mississippi  to  the  Pacific  was  an  undiscov 
ered  country,  under  the  dominion  of  France,  England,  Mex 
ico,  and  Spain;  a  mysterious  region  of  unexplored  deserts,  of 
illimitable  prairies  and  plains ;  of  nameless  rivers  and  colossal 
mountain  ranges;  the  land  of  dreams,  of  romance  and  adven 
ture,  as  unknown  as  the  interior  of  Africa  to-day.  St.  Louis, 
New  Orleans,  and  Pensacola  were  foreign  towns,  and  the  name 
of  Chicago,  now  one  of  the  chief  cities  of  the  world,  was  not 
written  on  the  map. 

The  entire  population  of  the  Union  was  about  the  same 
as  that  of  the  State  of  New  York  in  1899.  Its  area  was  not 
much  in  excess  of  800,000  square  miles,  and  its  organic  law 
had  no  provisions  for  acquiring  foreign  territory,  for  hold 
ing  colonial  dependencies,  nor  for  the  incorporation  of  alien 
communities. 

Then,  as  now,  there  were  paleozoic  statesmen,  hair-split 
ting  metaphysical  politicians,  costive  legislators,  brakemen  on 
the  express  train  of  American  destiny,  phrase-mongers  hurl- 


176  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ing  the  derisive  epithet  of  imperialism  at  the  irresistible  col 
umn  of  migration,  impelled  by  the  earth-hunger  which  is  the 
characteristic  of  our  race,  that  was  moving  westward  to  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  the  Pacific. 

The  foundation  of  the  "Empire  of  the  West"  was  laid 
by  the  purchase  in  1803,  for  $15,000,000,  of  the  Province  of 
Louisiana,  which  more  than  doubled  the  national  domain, 
adding  1,171,931  square  miles,  comprising  Alabama  and  Mis 
sissippi  north  of  parallel  31  degrees,  all  of  Louisiana,  Arkansas, 
Missouri,  Iowa,  Minnesota  west  of  the  Mississippi,  Nebraska, 
North  and  South  Dakota,  Kansas  except  the  southwest  corner 
south  of  the  Arkansas  River,  Colorado,  Montana,  Wyoming 
east  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  Oklahoma  and  the  Indian  Terri 
tory.  This  stupendous  acquisition,  now  the  granary  of  the 
world,  the  inexhaustible  storehouse  of  the  base  and  precious 
metals,  rich  in  every  element  of  present  prosperity  and  far 
richer  in  every  element  of  future  opulence,  was  denounced  by 
Josiah  Quincy,  of  Massachusetts,  when  Louisiana  was  admitted, 
as  a  virtual  dissolution  of  the  Union,  justifying  all  the  States 
in  preparing  for  amicable  or  violent  separation. 

The  annexation  of  Florida  by  treaty  with  Spain  in  1819, 
of  Texas  by  joint  resolution  of  Congress  in  1845,  of  Utah, 
Nevada,  Arizona,  western  Colorado,  and  New  Mexico  by  con 
quest  from  Mexico  and  by  the  Gadsden  Purchase,  which  added 
more  than  a  million  square  miles  to  our  possessions,  were 
due  to  the  determination  of  the  South  to  retain  control  of 
the  Senate  for  the  protection  of  slavery;  but  by  the  opera 
tion  of  economic  laws,  culminating  in  the  War  of  the  Rebel 
lion,  all  except  Florida  have  become  integjpl  parts  of  the 
Empire  of  the  West. 


A  DREAM  OF  EMPIRE.  177 

Great  Britain  in  1846  surrendered  a  doubtful  claim  to 
Oregon,  Idaho,  and  Washington,  and  Russia,  by  treaty, 
March  30,  1867,  ceded  Alaska,  comprising  577,390  square 
miles,  for  $7,200,000.  So  that  the  sun  never  sets  on  our 
boundaries,  and  when  at  eight  his  evening  rays  glow  upon 
our  western  frontier  at  Behring  Straits,  his  morning  beams 
gild  the  headlands  of  Maine. 

This  enormous  body  politic,  extending  from  the  Ohio  to 
the  Pacific,  and  from  Canada  to  the  Gulf,  known  by  the  ge 
neric  term  of  "the  West,"  is  among  the  most  extraordinary 
of  the  phenomena  of  the  nineteenth  century. 

In  less  than  one  hundred  years  the  untrodden  wilderness 
of  1800,  ten  times  greater  in  extent  than  France,  has  become 
the  abode  of  thirty  million  people  residing  in  twenty-four 
States  and  three  Territories,  sending  forty-eight  senators  to 
the  National  Congress,  with  agricultural  productions  that  con 
trol  the  food  markets  of  the  whole  civilized  world. 

Individual  liberty,  the  practice  of  self-government,  equal 
ity  of  rights  before  equal  laws,  and  equal  opportunities  in 
the  struggle  for  existence  have  been  the  potential  agencies 
that  have  abolished  the  frontier  and  subjugated  the  desert. 

The  race  that  has  wrought  this  transformation,  conscious 
of  a  destiny  not  yet  accomplished,  pauses  for  an  instant 
upon  the  shores  of  the  Pacific,  before  entering  upon  its  final 
career  for  the  moral  and  material  conquest  of  the  world. 


HALLUCINATIONS  OF  DESPAIR. 


The  gentleman  who  said  the  love  of  money  was  the  root 
of  all  evil  either  had  the  epigram  habit,  and  was  the  uncon 
scious  dupe  of  his  own  exaggerations,  or  else  he  spoke  with 
out  reflection  and  from  insufficient  data. 

It  was  a  hasty  generalization  which  omitted  from  the 
catalogue  of  the  generic  causes  of  evil  the  love  of  power  and 
glory,  the  hunger  for  fame,  the  passion  for  woman  and  the 
grape,  the  appetite  for  knowledge  that  is  forbidden. 

There  was  no  money  in  Eden.  Adam  drew  no  checks* 
Eve  ran  no  bills.  Evil  in  plenty  exists  among  those  who 
are  not  disturbed  by  the  volume  or  the  ratio  of  their  circu 
lating  medium.  But  even  were  the  aphorism  of  the  moralist 
true,  which  it  is  not,  it  would  be  no  discredit  to  money.  In 
a  successful  universe  evil  is  quite  as  indispensable  as  good- 
It  keeps  the  procession  going.  Without  evil  progress  would 
cease. 

It  is  the  contest  between  the  forces  which  would  destroy, 
and  those  that  would  uphold  which  keeps  the  planets  in 
their  orbits  and  hangs  the  constellations  in  the  firmament. 

Without  temptation  virtue  would  expire  from  lack  of 
exercise.  Were  evil  extinct,  there  would  no  longer  be  any 
pretext  for  religion,  nor  any  throne  for  the  sovereign  of 
the  moral  kingdom.  Singing  psalms,  waving  palm  branches,, 
and  taking  constitutionals  along  the  golden  streets  of  the 

178 


HALLUCINATIONS  OF  DESPAIR.  179 

New  Jerusalem  would  become  monotonous  if  hell  were  abol 
ished.  To  paraphrase  Voltaire,  were  there  no  devil,  it  would 
be  necessary  for  man  to  invent  one.  But  this  another  story. 

Perhaps  by  the  love  of  money  the  polemic  meant  the  sor 
did  desire  of  wealth  for  its  own  sake,  or  for  the  purchase  of 
guilty  pleasures  or  the  accomplishment  of  wicked  designs. 

But  the  utmost  ingenuity  of  the  glossarian  cannot  change 
the  fact  that  among  all  sources  of  earthly  power  the  most 
potent,  palpable,  and  beneficent  is  that  which  accompanies 
the  possession  of  money  honestly  acquired  and  honorably 
employed. 

Some  care  nothing  for  ambition  or  renown,  but  every 
one  must  have  money — manhood  may  forget  the  joys  of 
youth  and  age  sink  into  an  apathy  which  is  indifferent  alike 
to  the  allurements  of  pleasure  and  the  intoxication  of  success, 
but  no  one  is  so  young  or  so  old  as  not  to  want  money.  The 
necessity  for  cash  begins  with  the  germ  and  ends  with  the 
period  at  the  end  of  the  epitaph. 

The  praises  of  poverty  have  been  pronounced  by  the  rich. 
Seneca  wrote  the  eulogy  of  poverty  on  a  table  of  gold,  but 
nobody  wants  to  be  poor.  Some  philosopher  has  said  that 
the  way  to  have  what  you  want  is  to  want  what  you  have; 
and  another,  that  it  is  better  not  to  wish  for  a  thing  than  to 
have  it;  but  money  still  remains  the  universal  object  of  chief 
desire.  The  reason  is  obvious.  For  the  individual,  money 
means  education,  travel,  books,  leisure,  superiority  to  the 
accidents  of  life,  comely  apparel,  in  health  the  best  cook, 
in  sickness  the  most  skillful  physician,  the  happiness  of  those 
beloved,  the  luxury  of  doing  good.  For  society  it  means  libra 
ries,  museums,  parks,  galleries  of  art,  hospitals,  universities, 


i8o  JOHN-  JAMES  INGALLS. 

comfort  for  the  unfortunate,  splendor  for  the  rich,  everything 
that  distinguishes  civilization  from  barbarism. 

The  aggregated  wealth  of  the  United  States  is  estimated 
to  be  about  seventy-five  hundred  million  dollars.  Divided 
equally  per  capita,  each  person  would  have  in  the  neighbor 
hood  of  twelve  hundred  dollars,  and  the  idea  seems  to  be 
gaining  ground  that  every  man  who  has  more  than  this  is 
to  that  degree  culpable  in  that  he  is  feloniously  in  possession 
of  what  morally  belongs  to  someone  else. 

All  questions  in  our  system,  except  those  of  theology, 
are  political,  and  come  at  last  to  the  ballot-box  for  decision. 
It  is  a  government  of  numbers,  and  the  majority  have  K-ss 
than  twelve  hundred  dollars  apiece.  As  things  are  going 
on  now,  the  time  is  not  far  of!  when  the  man  with  a  hundred 
millions  may  be  required  to  show  his  title,  and  if  there  is  any 
flaw,  to  make  restitution. 

vSome  with  much  less  apparently  anticipate  the  crisis, 
and  are  alreadv  making  contributions  to  the  conscience  fund 
of  the  nation,  announcing  that  it  is  discreditable  for  any 
man  to  die  rich.  The  millionaires  are  on  the  defensive. 
They  are  beginning  to  apologize.  Some  are  expatriating, 
which  is  an  involuntary  tribute  to  public  opinion.  Indif 
ferent  to  statutes,  human  or  divine,  they  dread  the  daily 
newspaper  and  the  verdict  of  the  people.  They  belong  to 
that  class,  engendered  by  superfluous  wealth,  among  whom 
education  has  degenerated  into  flippant  pedantry;  religion 
into  shallow  mysticism ;  politics  into  a  vague  passion  for  aris 
tocracy;  society  into  a  languid  mob  of  sycophants,  the  par 
asites  of  English  pederasts  and  French  grisettes,  with  the 
spirit  of  Uriah  Heep  and  the  morals  of  Robert  Macaire. 

For  whatever  hatred  and  exasperation   there  are  against 


HALLUCINATIONS  OP  DESPAIR.  181 

wealth  in  the  United  States  its  possessors  are  directly  respon 
sible.  They  have  brought  it  upon  themselves  by  their  sense 
less  greed  and  folly  and  rapacity.  Great  rewards  for  great 
services  is  the  law  of  our  race.  No  genuine  American  grudges 
the  fortune  acquired  by  industry,  courage,  enterprise,  fore 
thought,  and  genius  in  fair  competition  and  honest  rivalry, 
whether  it  be  a  million  or  a  hundred  million.  He  does  not 
believe  that  any  limit  can  be  fixed  for  individual  acquisi 
tion,  nor  that  the  wealth  of  the  rich  is  the  cause  of  the  pov 
erty  of  the  poor,  nor  in  taking  from  those  who  have  and 
giving  to  those  who  have  not.  Least  of  all  does  he  accept 
those  vagaries  of  the  impotent,  which  would  deprive  ambition 
of  its  incentive  and  labor  of  its  reward,  and  instead  of  lifting 
all  to  the  level  of  the  highest,  would  drag  all  down  to  the 
standard  of  the  lowest. 

The  Osage  tribe  of  Indians,  whose  fertile  reservation  lies 
between  Kansas  and  the  Creek  country,  is  the  richest  commun 
ity  in  the  world.  Their  per  capita  of  wealth  is  more  than  ten 
times  greater  than  that  of  the  most  opulent  civilized  nation. 

They  number  about  1,500.  They  have  in  the  United 
States  Treasury  nearly  eight  million  dollars,  derived  mainly 
from  the  sale  of  superfluous  lands,  drawing  interest  at  the 
rate  of  7  per  cent.  They  own  in  addition  nearly  one  mil 
lion  five  hundred  thousand  acres  of  woodland,  farms,  and 
pastures,  worth  not  less  than  ten  dollars  an  acre. 

Each  Osage  Indian,  man,  woman,  and  child,  is  worth  at 
least  fifteen  thousand  dollars.  Every  family,  upon  a  division, 
would  possess  on  an  average  sixty  thousand  dollars.  It  is 
held  and  owned  in  common.  All  their  industries  are  "nation 
alized."  The  Government  takes  care  of  their  property,  super 
intends  their  education  and  religion,  provides  food  and  cloth- 


1 82  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ing,  protects  the  weak  from  the  aggressions  of  the  strong,  and 
abolishes  as  far  as  it  may  the  injustice  of  destiny.  All  have 
equal  rights;  none  have  special  privileges.  They  toil  not, 
neither  do  they  spin.  The  problems  of  existence  are  solved 
for  them.  The  rate  of  wages,  the  hours  of  labor,  the  unearned 
increment,  the  rapacity  of  the  monopolist,  the  wrongs  of  the 
toiler,  the  howl  of  the  demagogue  do  not  disturb  nor  perplex 
them.  They  have  ample  leisure  for  intellectual  cultivation 
and  development,  for  communion  with  Nature  and  for  the 
contemplation  of  art,  for  the  joys  of  home,  but  they  remain— 
Osage  Indians. 

Socialism  and  communism  are  the  prescriptions  of  those 
who  have  failed.  They  are  the  hallucinations  of  despair. 
They  have  been  tried  and  found  wanting.  Instead  of  being 
novelties,  they  are^the  refuse_and  debris  of  history.  Civili 
zation  has  been  built  on  their  ruins. 


SOCIALISM  IS  IMPOSSIBLE. 


The  radical  error  of  socialism  is  the  assumption  that 
there  is  some  power  in  society  above  and  beyond  that  of 
Individuals  of  which  society  is  composed. 

Government  and  the  State  are  described  as  independent 
political  beings,  entirely  apart  from  the  people. 

Government  ownership  of  railroads,  nationalization  of 
the  means  of  production  and  industrial  collectivism  are  phrases 
at  once  shallow,  dishonest,  and  misleading.  A  nation  is  a 
voluntary  association  of  individuals,  and  government  is  the 
agency  by  which  its  affairs  are  conducted. 

The  United  States  is  a  nation,  and  its  Government  con 
sists  of  a  president  and  the  Congress,  chosen  by  a  majority 
of  the  voters,  and  judiciary,  nominated  by  the  executive  and 
confirmed  by  the  Senate. 

Even  the  wayfaring  man,  though  a  fool,  must  know  that 
it  is  jmrjossjble  for  the  Government  of  the  United  States 
to  own  railroads,  or  the  means  of  production,  or  to  carry 
on  the  industries  of  the  country.  It  has  no  power  except 
that  which  is  conferred  by  .the  people.  The  money  in  its 
treasury  is  contributed  by  the  people.  For  its  acts  it  is 
responsible  to  the  people  as  a  servant  to  his  master.  The 
power  of  a  State  is  the  aggregate  strength  of  its  inhabitants, 
as  its  wealth  is  the  sum  total  of  their  possessions. 

All  the  work  of  the  human  race  since  creation  has  been 
done  by  indiviuals,  and  progress  has  been  greatest  where 

4»        183 


184  JOHN  JAMES  IXGALLS. 

man  has  been  most  free.  The  inventions  and  improvements 
which  have  dignified  humanity;  the  intellectual  triumphs 
which  have  elevated  and  ennobled  it;  the  heroism,  virtue, 
and  self-sacrifice  which  have  consecrated  it,  are  all  the  result 
of  individual  effort. 

Destiny  condemns  the  vast  majority  of  men  in  every  com 
munity  to  mediocrity.  The  few  succeed;  the  many  fail.  The 
glittering  rewards,  emoluments,  and  prizes  of  life  do  not  ap 
pear  to  be  equitably  distributed. 

The  race  is  to  the  swift ;  the  battle  to  the  strong.  Fame, 
wealth,  power,  luxury,  ease  and,  happiness  are  to  the  multi 
tude  a  mocking  dream.  Ninety-seven  out  of  every  hundred 
American  citizens  die  penniless. 

These  are  the  advocates  and  propagandists  of  socialism. 
Their  programme  is  the  forcible  redistribution  of  the  assets 
of  society.  It  proposes  to  substitute  the  tyranny  of  the 
mob  for  the  tyranny  of  the  monarch,  and  to  take  by  force 
from  those  who  have  and  give  to  those  who  have  not ;  to 
obliterate  all  organic  distinctions  among  men,  and  to  con 
found  the  moral  and  intellectual  limitations  of  the  race.  It 
is  an  attempt  by  human  enactment  to  abrogate  and  repeal 
the  laws  of  God. 

The  public  ownership  of  railroads  merely  means  that 
the  majority  of  the  people,  who  do  not  own  them,  shall  take 
them  from  the  possession  of  the  minority,  who  do,  by  pur 
chase,  or  theft,  or  confiscation,  and  have  them  operated  by 
the  "Government"  for  the  benefit  of  the  "State."  The 
railroads  of  the  United  States  have  cost,  perhaps,  ten  thou 
sand  million  dollars,  an  amount  more  than  five  times  greater 
than  the  entire  money  circulation  of  the  country.  How  the 
"Government,"  being  a  pauper,  is  to  pay  this  sum,  except 


SOCIALISM  Is  IMPOSSIBLE.  185 

by  compelling  its  citizens  to  surrender  their  accumulations 
also,  or  how  the  "Government"  is  to  maintain  and  operate 
them,  except  by  precisely  the  same  agencies  through  which 
they  are  now  carried  on,  does  not  appear.  Government  is 
worst  served  than  any  other  employer  of  labor  on  earth.  It 
pays  higher  wages  for  less  service,  and  the  waste  and  idle 
ness  are  incredible.  The  sense  of  personal  responsibility 
in  the  employee  is  entirely  lost,  and  although  the  majority 
receive  more  money  than  ever  in  their  lives  before,  they 
continually  complain  of  the  stinginess  of  Congress,  and  in 
trigue  for  higher  compensation,  longer  vacations,  and  unearned 
promotion. 

It  is  not  exaggeration  to  say  that  any  one  of  half  a  dozen 
great  railroad  managers  in  the  country,  if  allowed  to  carry 
on  the  Government  as  a  private  business  is  conducted,  could 
pay  the  pensions,  the  interest  on  the  public  debt,  support 
the  Army  and  Navy,  construct  the  public  buildings,  pay  all 
salaries,  maintain  the  diplomatic  service,  and  carry  the  mails 
for  75  per  cent  of  what  it  now  costs  the  taxpayers,  and  make 

a  great  fortune  for  himself  besides,  every  year.     If  Govern- 

% 

ment  can  hardly  conduct  the  limited  functions  it  now  per 
forms,  what  would  be  the  result  of  an  attempt  to  control 
the  complex  interests  of  all  social  life  under  the  management 
of  those  who  had  failed  in  the  successful  administration  of 
their  personal  affairs? 

The  advocates  of  socialism  are  in  the  habit  of  pointing 
to  the  Post  Office  Department  as  an  illustration  of  their 
theories,  and  of  the  tendency  of  States  toward  collectivism. 

On  the  contrary,  the  mail  service  of  the  United  States  is  a 
typical,  burdensome,  and  irresponsible  monopoly  of  the  most 
offensive  description.  Beyond  appointing  a  host  of  officials  J:o 


1 86  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

collect,  pouch,  dispatch,  receive,  and  distribute  the  letters, 
papers,  and  parcels,  the  Government  has  nothing  whatever  to 
do  with  their  transmission.  They  are  conveyed  by  railroads, 
steamboats,  stage-coaches,  and  private  contractors  at  extortion 
ate  rates,  some  trains  getting  the  entire  cost  of  maintenance 
and  operation  from  their  receipts  from  the  Post  Office.  The 
Government  pays  an  average  of  8  cents  the  pound  for  an  aver 
age  haul  of  four  and  one-half  miles,  while  the  express  companies 
carry  merchandise  from  New  York  to  Chicago,  a  thousand  miles, 
for  $3.00  per  hundred  pounds,  and  some  transcontinental  lines 
will  take  goods  from  New  Orleans  to  San  Francisco  for  8-10  of  i 
cent  the  pound;  while  Government,  by  law,  compels*the  citi 
zens  to  pay  for  carrying  their  letters  at  the  rate  of  $610  the  ton. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  it  is  much  nearer  $1,000  the  ton,  for  very 
few  letters  weigh  the  ounce  which  may  be  taken  for  2  cents 
postage. 

And  not  only  so,  but  the  Government  renounces  all  liability 
for  the  safe  delivery  of  the  property  which  it  compels  the 
citizen  to  intrust  to  its  charge,  except  to  the  extent  of  $10 
when  it  is  registered.  And  this  is  the  basis  upon  which  social 
ism  would  have  all  the  business  of  the  country  conducted. 

Any  merchant  who  treated  his  customers  as  the  United 
States  treats  its  citizens  in  the  postal  service  would  be 
promptly  adjudged  a  bankrupt  and  sent  to  the  penitentiary 
It  cannot  be  denied  that  some  aspects  of  individualism  are 
not  altogether  lovely.  Unrestrained  competition  has  engen 
dered  a  herd  of  moral  monsters  with  the  rapacity  of  the 
shark,  the  greed  of  the  wolf,  the  cunning  of  the  fox,  the  feroc 
ity  of  the  tiger,  and  the  ingenuity  of  the  devil. 

But  these  socialism  could  neither  banish  nor  destroy. 
No  change  in  the  social  order  can  extirpate  selfishness  or 


SOCIALISM  Is  IMPOSSIBLE.  187 

eliminate  the  evil  propensities  of  man.  These  are  beyond 
statute  or  ordinance.  They  can  be  reached  only  by  con 
science,  and  the  reformation  of  the  individual  must  come 
from  within. 

America  has  been  j:he  paradise  and  the  nineteenth  century 
the  golden  age  of  individualism.  At  no  other  place  or  time 
has  the  world  offered  richer  prizes  or  freer  field  to  capacity, 
courage,  and  intelligence.  There  have  been  errors  and  evils. 
Perfection  is  still  remote,  but  there  has  been  greater  progress 
in  science,  in  popular  education,  in  the  means  of  livelihood, 
in  sanitation,  in  the  means  of  communication,  in  the  con 
quest  over  the  mysteries  of  the  universe,  than  in  all  the  cent 
uries  that  preceded.  We  have  become  the  richest  and  most 
powerful  nation  because  every  man  has  been  left  free  to  be 
master  of  himself,  to  improve  his  condition,  to  obtain  superior 
reward  for  superior  merit. 

And  this  vast  material  development  has  been  accom 
panied  by  unprecedented  activity  of  the  moral  and  altruistic 
energies  of  the  race.  Never  have  religion,  charity,  and  self- 
sacrifice  done  so  much  to  alleviate  human  wretchedness  or 
wealth  been  consecrated  to  nobler  use.  Colleges,  univer 
sities,  technical  schools,  offer  free  instruction  to  the  hum 
blest.  Parks,  galleries,  and  museums  afford  the  means  of 
recreation  to  the  poorest.  Hospitals  for  the  sick,  retreats 
for  the  infirm,  asylums  for  the  unfortunate,  exemplify  the 
Golden  Rule,  and  justify  the  faith  that  the  brotherhood  of 
man  is  not  an  empty  formula  or  a  derisive  fiction.  Society 
is  a  fortuitous  and  accidental  aggregation  of  individuals. 
Societies  have  done  nothing  in  this  world,  nor  ever  will.  The 
fundamental  fact  of  Christian  civilization  is  the  immeasurable 
value  of  the  individual  soul. 


1 88  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Socialism  is  the  final  refuge  of  those  who  have  failed 
in  the  struggles  for  life.  It  is  the  prescription  of  those  who 
are  born  tired.  It  means  the  survival  of  the  unfit,  and  the 
inevitable  result  would  be  degeneration.  It  would  deprive 
ambition  of  its  incentive,  industry  of  its  stimulus,  excellence 
of  its  supremacy,  and  character  of  its  reward. 

Individualism  would  lift  all  to  the  level  of  the  highest. 
Socialism  would  drag  all  down  to  the  level  of  the  lowest. 
Individualism  is  progress  and  life.  Socialism  is  stagnation 
and  death. 


MEN  ARE  NOT  CREATED  EQUAL. 


The  interest  of  the  people  in  the  social  crisis  is  evinced 
by  numerous  letters  from  thoughtful  and  intelligent  cor 
respondents,  who  offer  solutions  of  industrial  problems  and 
remedies  for  the  misery  and  poverty  which  are  the  heritage 
of  so  large  a  portion  of  the  human  race. 

The  single  tax,  the  abolition  of  rents,  the  reduction  of 
profits,  the  prohibition  of  interest,  free  trade,  free  silver, 
sumptuary  laws,  socialism,  communism,  and  anarchy  all  have 
their  advocates,  whose  sincerity  entitles  their  theories  to  re 
spectful  consideration. 

Like  a  despondent  patient,  long  ill,  who  has  lost  confi 
dence  in  the  faculty  and  their  prescriptions,  the  wretched 
and  unfortunate  are  patronizing  political  apothecaries  with 
their  patent  medicines  and  consulting  fetich  doctors  and 
voodoos  with  their  cabalistic  divinations. 

Much  of  the  prevalent  discontent  no  doubt  springs  from 
a  perverted  constitution  of  the  nature  of  human  liberty 
and  the  meaning  of  human  equality. 

The  glittering  generalities  of  Thomas  Jefferson,  that  all 
men  are  created  equal,  and  that  the  rights  to  life,  liberty, 
and  the  pursuit  of  happiness  are  inalienable,  have  been  the 
texts  for  many  injurious  instructions.  They  are  rhetorical 
flourishes,  meaningless  to  the  gentleman  on  the  scaffold  and 
in  Sing  Sing  who  pursues  the  fleeting  phantom  of  happiness 

with  the  jimmy  of  the  burglar  and  the  dagger  of  the  assassin. 

189 


190  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Men  are  not  created  equal  physically,  morally,  or  intel 
lectually,  nor  in  aptitude,  opportunity,  nor  condition. 

It  is  perhaps  accurate  to  say  that  of  the  fifteen  hundred 
million  inhabitants  of  the  earth  no  two  are  created  equal. 
Nature  is  incapable  of  uniformity,  and  detests  equality  as 
much  as  she  abhors  a  vacuum.  One  is  made  to  honor,  an 
other  to  dishonor,  as  one  star  differeth  from  another  star  in 
glory. 

History  is  a  series  of  repetitions.  Those  who  have  failed 
in  life  blame  everybody  but  themselves.  The  complaint 
against  fate  is  as  old  as  Adam.  It  will  end  only  with  the 
epitaph  of  humanity.  The  distinctions  between  men  were 
established  by  act  of  God,  and  they  cannot  be  abolished  by 
act  of  Congress. 

Were  all  these  panaceas  enacted  into  statutes,  all  bar 
riers  thrown  down,  all  obstacles  removed,  all  burdens  lifted, 
and  the  whole  constituency  lined  up  for  a  fresh  start,  the 
result  would  be  the  same. 

Were  all  wealth  of  the  country  equally  distributed,  there 
would  be  about  Si, 200  per  capita.  Could  the  assets  of  the 
Nation  be  divided  pro  rata,  share  and  share  alike,  the  first 
day  of  January,  1900,  by  the  close  of  the  century  the  soul 
of  the  philanthropist  would  be  shocked  by  the  same  spec 
tacle  of  inequality  existing  now.  Some  would  be  in  the  cab, 
some  on  the  foot-board,  some  in  private  cars,  and  others 
walking  the  ties  in  search  of  a  dry  culvert  for  the  night,  and  in 
six  months  more  the  reformer  of  the  wrongs  of  society  would 
demand  in  the  name  of  justice  another  division. 

It  seems  trite  and  superfluous  to  affirm  that  the  equality 
of  man  can  mean  nothing  more  than  the  equality  of  rights 
before  just  laws  and  equality  of  opportunity  in  the  race  of 


MEN  ARE;  NOT  CREATED  EQUAL.  191 

life.  Every  man  has  the  absolute  right  to  the  use  of  his 
faculties  and  opportunities  to  the  utmost  to  better  his  con 
dition  and  increase  his  fortune  so  long  as  he  does  not  inter 
fere  with  the  free  exercise  of  the  same  rights  by  everybody 
else. 

It  should  be  apparent  also  upon  the  most  superficial  re 
flection  that  political  liberty  by  maintaining  equality  of  rights 
must  inevitably  result  in  greater  inequality  of  condition 
than  any  other  system.  All  fetters  are  cast  off.  Every 
thing  goes.  Life  is  a  grand  free-for-all.  There  is  no  ped 
igree,  nor  caste,  nor  prerogative.  The  sway-backed  mule 
has  the  same  rights  on  the  track  as  Ormonde  and  Iroquois, 
the  monarchs  of  the  turf.  The  petted  canary  and  the  scream 
ing  jay  have  equal  rights  in  the  atmosphere  with  the  condor 
soaring  above  the  inaccessible  peak  of  Chimborazo  or  the 
frigate  bird  that  sleeps  at  midnight  with  pinions  outspread 
upon  the  tempest,  a  thousand  leagues  from  shore. 

In  the  exercise  of  his  powers  and  the  enjoyment  of  free 
dom  can  laws  assign  any  frontier  beyond  which  a  man  may 
not  pass?  In  the  kingdom  of  knowledge  can  any  bound  be 
set  to  learning  and  wisdom?  Can  society  say  to  Edison  or 
Tesla,  "You  shall  explore  the  mysteries  of  Nature  no  further, 
lest  you  infringe  the  equality  of  man"? 

Can  we  say  what  reward  they  shall  receive  for  the  inestim 
able  benefits  they  have  conferred  upon  the  world? 

Can  legislators,  or  conventions,  or  tribunals  assess  the 
wages  that  Melba  shall  receive  for  her  songs,  or  Kipling  for  his 
stories,  or  Choate  for  his  argument,  or  Bryan  for  his  eloquence, 
or  Irving  for  his  impersonations  ? 

The  world  is  eager  for  excellence.  It  pays  for  what  it  wants. 
There  has  been  no  time  when  the  man  or  woman  who  can  do 


192  JOHX  JAMES  INGALLS. 

anything  better  then  anybody  else  was  so  sure  of  instant  rec 
ognition  and  ample  emolument  as  now.  It  is  the  essential  cor 
ollary  to  liberty  that  courage,  energy,  sagacity,  and  dexterity 
should  succeed  and  that  brains  should  win  the  victories  and 
secure  the  prizes  of  life.  Reason  rebels  at  the  thought  of  the 
establishment  of  arbitrary  restrictions  upon  the  activity  of  our 
powers  and  the  full  enjoyment  of  their  acquisitions. 

The  time  will  never  come  when  the  race  will  not  be  to  the 
swift  and  the  battle  to  the  strong.  Indolence  will  never  have 
the  same  wage  as  thrift  nor  ignorance  the  same  reward  as 
wisdom. 

Ambition  will  never  lose  its  incentive  nor  genius  its  suprem 
acy.  Poverty  and  debt  will  never  be  abolished  by  edict,  nor 
will  those  who  have  failed  in  life,  having  had  equal  opportunity, 
take  charge  of  the  affairs  of  those  who  have  suceeded.  The 
dreams  of  Jack  Cade  and  his  kindred  reformers  will  never  be 
realized. 

The  popular  notion  now  seems  to  be  that  there  is  just  so 
much  wealth  in  the  world ;  that  life  is  a  struggle  to  see  who 
shall  grab  the  most,  and  that  the  man  who  acquires  a  fortune 
has  obtained  by  crime  what  belongs  to  someone  else. 

Xo  mistake  could  be  greater.  The  acquisition  of  a  million 
by  invention ;  by  ministering  to  new  wants ;  by  novel  applica 
tions  in  science  to  the  needs  of  daily  life ;  by  enterprise  and 
skill  in  mining,  agriculture,  and  manufactures,  is  practically 
the  creation  of  wealth — the  development  of  value  that  but  for 
the  exertions  of  its  possessors  would  have  had  no  existence. 

The  prosperous  do  not  complain.  The  strong  can  take  care 
of  themselves.  It  is  the  feeble  who  must  be  lifted  up  and  sup 
ported,  and  to  them  the  State  owes  its  obligations.  It  must 
protect  the  weak  from  oppression,  the  poor  from  extortion, 


MEN  ARE  NOT  CREATED  EQUAL.  193 

the  humble  from  injustices.  It  must  secure  universal  diffusion 
of  civil  and  political  rights,  with  vigorous  guarantees  for  the 
security  of  life,  liberty,  and  property.  It  must  provide  edu 
cation  for  the  ignorant,  refuge  for  the  defective,  asylum  for  the 
helpless,  and  give  every  man  an  equal  chance  to  "get  there"  if 
he  can.  If  he  gets  left,  his  name  is  "Dennis." 

Pornpey  buys  a  brush,  whitewashes  a  fence,  and  earns  fifty 
cents. 

Millet,  with  the  same  outlay,  paints  "The  Angelus,"  which 
sells  for  one  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  dollars. 

So  long  as  Pompey  has  the  right  to  paint  ' '  The  Angelus ' ' 
and  Millet  the  right  to  whitewash  the  fence,  neither  has  just 
ground  for  complaint.  They  have  equal  opportunity  and  must 
be  content. 

But  if  a  number  of  gentlemen  combine  and  buy  up  all  the 
brushes,  and  the  lime,  and  the  pigments,  so  that  Pompey  can 
not  whitewash  nor  Millet  paint  without  their  consent,  both 
may  justly  claim  that  they  have  been  deprived  of  their  birth 
right  and  are  subject  to  degrading  bondage  and  servitude. 

It  seems  inequitable  that  Patti  should  receive  fifteen  hun 
dred  dollars  for  a  song,  while  the  seamstress  earns  fifteen 
cents  for  a  day's  work  making  shirts  in  a  sweat-shop.  But  if 
every  woman  had  the  voice  of  the  prima  donna,  and  only  one 
woman  in  the  world  could  make  shirts,  the  situation  would  be 
reversed.  The  condition  of  the  shirt-maker  cannot  be  ame 
liorated  by  changing  political  institutions,  or  methods  of  taxa 
tion,  or  by  nationalizing  manufactures.  If  wages  are  to  be 
increased,  the  number  of  seamstresses  must  be  diminished  or 
people  must  wear  more  shirts. 

The  argument  of  Henry  George  for  the  abolition  of  private 
ownership  of  land  is  that  value  is  given  to  land  by  the  landless. 


194  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

The  same  is  true  of  everything  else.  The  value  of  all  property 
comes  from  those  who  want  it  and  do  not  have  it.  The  value 
of  shirts  is  given  to  them  by  the  shirtless ;  the  value  of  diamonds, 
by  the  diamondless;  the  value  of  railroads,  by  those  who  want 
to  travel. 

The  future  will  be  richer  than  the  past.  Vast  as  has  been 
the  progress  of  the  race,  there  are  greater  triumphs  to  be  won 
by  those  that  have  eyes  to  see  and  ears  to  hear. 

The  medicine  for  the  ills  of  society  must  be  found,  therefore, 
in  individual  cultivation  and  development,  and  the  ultimate 
appeal  must  be  to  conscience  and  intelligence  to  protect  liberty 
from  the  folly  of  its  friends  and  the  fury  of  its  foes. 


THE  POOR  MAN'S  CHANCE. 


One  summer  evening  in  pensive  thought  I  wandered,  fifty- 
odd  years  ago,  with  a  schoolmate  under  the  "button woods"  in 
Haverhill,  on  the  shore  of  the  moonlit  Merrimac. 

We  talked  long,  as  thoughtful  schoolboys  will,  of  the  mys 
teries  of  the  universe  and  the  enigmas  of  destiny.  To  our  de 
fective  forecast  the  future  appeared  dark,  troubled,  and  uncer 
tain.  Time's  golden  age  was  behind.  The  battle  for  fame  and 
fortune  was  more  desperate. 

We  did  not  know,  we  could  not  know,  no  one  knew,  that  we 
were  standing  at  the  portal  or  the  threshold  of  the  most  mar 
velous  age  of  the  world's  history;  an  age  of  such  incredible 
achievements  in  science,  war,  wealth,  luxury,  and  national 
power,  growth,  and  glory,  that  by  comparison  the  most  exag 
gerated  fables  of  fiction,  the  lamp  of  Aladdin,  the  purse  of  For- 
tunatus,  the  philosopher's  stone,  seem  like  the  trivial  com 
monplaces  of  the  nursery,  and  the  wildest  hyperbole  becomes 
tame  and  prosaic. 

Looking  backward  across  the  years  since  that  moonlight 
stroll  on  the  banks  of  the  enchanted  river,  I  do  not  see  that  I 
have  been  denied  any  right,  privilege,  or  opportunity  enjoyed 
by  those  who  have  drawn  the  great  prizes  in  the  lottery  of  life — 
we  all  had  the  same  chance.  If  laws  were  unjust,  all  alike  were 
their  victims.  If  statutes  were  beneficen/,  none  were  debarred 
their  advantage.  Those  who  climbed  the  highest  began  the 
lowest.  None  were  favored  by  legislation  or  influence. 


195 


196  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Lincoln  and  Grant,  neither  suspected  of  greatness,  were 
waiting  in  homely  indigence  the  summons  that,  ten  years  later, 
was  to  call  them  to  immortal  fame.  Edison,  the  mightiest 
magician  of  the  forces  of  Nature,  was  a  tramping  telegrapher. 
Carnegie  was  a  messenger-boy  in  Pittsburgh.  Huntington  was 
selling  picks,  nails,  and  horseshoes  in  Sacramento.  Jay  Gould 
was  a  book  agent  in  Delaware  County.  The  Rockefellers  and 
the  "mob  of  plutocrats  that  excite  the  envy  and  arouse  the  indig 
nation  of  those  who  have  failed,  all  began  in  the  lowest  and 
humblest  ways  of  life. 

I  had  the  same  chance,  and  every  boy  of  that  time  had  the 
same  chance.  The  world  was  all  before  me  where  to  choose, 
and  Providence  my  guide.  I  had  the  right  to  build  railroads, 
or  to  go  into  Wall  Street  and  wreck  them;  to  invent  the  tele 
phone;  to  write  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin";  to  mine  for  gold  and 
silver;  to  concoct  patent  medicines;  to  corner  petroleum;  to 
"bull"  pork  and  wheat,  like  my  cotemporaries.  The  only  thing 
I  lacked  was  brains.  I  didn't  know  how;  so  I  went  West  and 
helped  lay  the  foundations  and  build  the  superstructure  of  the 
great  empire  of  the  Northwest,  and  thus  missed  the  whole  show. 

And  then,  too,  luck  has  much  to  do  with  success  in  life.  He 
who  leaves  out  the  element  of  luck  omits  one  of  the  most  im 
portant  factors  in  the  game.  The  dish  of  some  is  always  bot 
tom  up  when  it  rains.  The  luckiest  man  of  this  generation  is 
Admiral  Dewey.  He  threw  double  sixes  twice  in  succession  at 
Manila. 

What  chance  has  the  poor  man  in  1900?  About  the  same, 
I  should  say,  he  had  fifty  years  ago.  In  some  ways  rather  bet 
ter,  if  he  can  adapt  himself  to  the  changed  conditions  of  society. 
Many  avenues  open  then  are  now  shut.  Many  opportunities, 
once  free,  no  longer  exist.  Competition  is  more  selfish  and 


THE  POOR  MAN'S  CHANCE.  197 

strenuous,  but  the  world  was  never  so  ready  as  now  to  pay  for 
what  it  wants.  There  has  been  no  time  when  the  man  or 
woman  who  can  do  anything  better  than  anybody  else  was  so 
sure  of  instant  recognition  and  remuneration. 

Paderewski  and  Irving  have  just  sailed  away  with  fortunes 
earned  by  a  few  months  of  professional  exhibition.  Mme. 
Nordica  received  a  thousand  dollars  for  singing  two  songs  that 
occupied  ten  minutes,  while  an  equally  meritorious  seamstress 
earns  twenty-five  cents  for  ten  hours'  repulsive  toil  in  a  sweat 
shop.  Kipling  gets  more  for  a  stanza  than  Milton  for  the  copy 
right  of  "Paradise  Lost."  Millet  and  Meissonier  derived  from 
the  brush  and  the  palette  the  revenues  of  the  treasuries  'of 
kingdoms. 

The  poor  man's  chance  depends  very  much  on  what  the 
poor  man  has  to  sell.  If  his  stock  in  trade  consists  of  untrained 
muscle,  a  dull  brain,  and  sullen  discontent,  he  will  work  for 
wages,  dine  from  a  tin  bucket  when  the  noon  whistle  blows,  and 
die  dependent  or  a  mendicant.  If  he  have  courage,  industry, 
enterprise,  foresight,  luck,  and  the  willing  mind,  he  will  gain 
competence  or  fortune.  He  will  establish  his  family  in  com 
fort,  educate  his  children  and  accustom  them  to  the  environ 
ment  of  refined  habits,  which,  after  all,  is  the  best  of  life. 

The  real  difference  in  men  is  not  in  want  of  opportunity, 
but  in  want  of  capacity  to  discern  opportunity  and  power  to 
take  advantage  of  opportunity. 

This,  at  least,  is  certain:  that  in  1950  the  celebrated  schol 
ars  and  teachers,  the  learned  divines,  the  eloquent  orators  and 
statesmen,  the  foremost  legislators  and  judges,  the  President 
who  will  have  been  inaugurated  the  year  before,  the  great 
authors  and  poets  and  philosophers,  the  inventors  and  mer 
chants  and  lords  of  finance,  will  be  men  who  are  now  young, 


198  JOHN  JAMES  ING  ALLS. 

poor,  and  obscure,  striving  against  obstacles  that  seem  insu 
perable  to  enter  in  at  the  strait  gate  that  leads  to  fame  and 
fortune. 

Society  is  reinforced  from  the  bottom  and  not  from  the  top. 
Families  die  out,  fortunes  are  dispersed ;  the  recruits  come  from 
the  farm,  the  forge,  and  the  work-shop,  and  not  from  the  club 
and  the  palace.  Those  who  will  control  the  destinies  of  the 
twentieth  century  are  now  boys  wearing  homespun  and  "hand- 
me-downs,"  and  not  the  gilded  youth  clad  in  purple  and  fine 
linen,  and  faring  sumptuously  every  day  at  Sherry's  and  Del- 
monico's.  This  is  the  poor  man's  chance.  It  is  open  to  all 
comers.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  law,  or  statute,  or  politics. 

Free  silver,  tariff,  expansion,  militarism,  have  nothing  to 
do  with  it.  What  is  needed  is  some  legislation  that  will  give 
brains  to  the  brainless,  thrift  to  the  thriftless,  industry  to  the 
irresolute,  and  discernment  to  the  fool.  Till  this  panacea  is 
discovered,  the  patient  must  minister  to  himself. 

The  worst  enemy  of  the  poor  man,  except  himself,  is  the 
trust,  and  of  all  forms  of  this  odious  tyranny  the  most  intoler 
able  is  the  labor  trust.  The  money  trust  kills  the  body,  the 
labor  trust  kills  the  soul.  It  destroys  the  independence  of  the 
laboring  man,  effaces  his  individuality,  cancels  excellence,  and 
substitutes  brute  force  for  intelligence. 

The  right  of  labor  to  combine  and  to  refuse  to  work  for 
wages  that  employers  are  willing  to  pay  is  undeniable ;  but 
when  strikers  organize  to  prevent  others  from  taking  their 
places  by  violence  and  murder,  destroying  property  and  sub 
jecting  great  companies  to  enormous  inconvenience,  hardship, 
and  loss,  they  attack  the  fundamental  rights  of  citizenship  and 
become  outlaws  and  criminals,  who  ought  to  be  exterminated. 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OP  THE  SOUL. 


When  Voltaire  said  that  if  there  were  no  God,  it  would  be 
necessary  for  man  to  invent  one,  he  formulated,  unconsciously 
perhaps,  the  fundamental  truth  of  existence.  4 

A  universe  without  a  God  is  an  intellectual  absurdity,  which 
reason  rejects  spontaneously.  God  is  indispensable.  Fate, 
force,  and  blind  chance  do  not  satisfy  the  mind.  If  all  the  let 
ters  in  the  play  of  "Hamlet"  were  shaken  in  a  dice-box  and 
thrown  at  midnight  in  a  tempest  on  the  Desert  of  Sahara,  they 
might  fall  exactly  as  they  are  arranged  in  the  drama.  It  may 
be  admitted  that  if  Destiny  kept  on  casting  long  enough,  they 
would  inevitably  at  some  time  so  fall,  which  would  render  the 
Bard  of  Avon  superfluous  and  unnecessary.  But  this  does  not 
disturb  our  belief  in  Shakespeare. 

Irrespective  of  creeds  and  theology,  they  are  wise  who 
would  recognize  God  in  the  Constitution,  because  faith  in  a 
Supreme  Being,  in  immortality  and  the  compensations  of 
eternity  conduces  powerfully  to  social  order  by  enabling  man 
to  endure  with  composure  the  injustice  of  this  world  in  the  hope 
of  reparation  in  that  which  is  to  come. 

Inasmuch  as  both  force  and  matter  are  infinite  and  inde 
structible,  and  can  be  neither  added  to  nor  subtracted  from,  it 
follows  that  in  some  form  we  have  always  existed,  and  that  we 
shall  continue  in  some  form  to  exist  forever. 

Whence  we  came  into  this  life  no  one  knows  nor  cares. 

Evolution,    metempsychosis,     reincarnation,    are    not    beliefs. 

199 


2oo  JOHN  JAMES  INGAIXS. 

They  are  parts  of  speech,  interesting  only  to  the  compiler  of 
lexicons. 

Our  appearance  here  is  not  voluntary.  We  are  sent  to  this 
planet  on  some  mysterious  errand  without  being  consulted  in 
advance.  Many  of  us  would  not  have  come  had  the  opportu 
nity  to  decline,  with  thanks,  been  presented. 

To  multitudes  life  is  an  inconceivable  insult  and  injury, 
an  intolerable  affront ;  torture  and  wretchedness  indescribable 
from  poverty,  disease,  grief,  Fortune's  slings  and  arrows;  wrongs 
deliberately  inflicted  by  some  unknown  malignant  power,  as 
Job  was  tormented  by  the  devil,  with  the  consent  of  God,  just 
to  try  him,  till  at  last  the  troubled  patriarch  cursed  the  day  he 
was  born. 

Worst  of  all,  we  are  sent  here  under  sentence  of  death.  The 
most  grievous  and  humiliating  punishment  man  can  inflict  up 
on  the  criminal  is  death. 

Human  tribunals  give  the  malefactor  a  chance.  His  crime 
must  be  proved.  He  can  put  in  his  defense.  He  can  appear  by 
attorney  and  plead  and  take  appeal.  But  we  are  all  condemned 
to  death  beforehand.  The  accusation  and  the  accuser  are 
unknown.  An  inexorable  verdict  has  been  pronounced  and 
recorded  in  the  secret  councils  of  the  skies.  We  are  neither 
confronted  with  the  witness  nor  allowed  a  day  in  court.  From 
the  hour  of  birth  we  are  beset  by  invulnerable  and  invisible 
enemies,  the  pestilence  that  walketh  in  darkness  and  the  de 
struction  that  wasteth  at  noonday.  Fatal  germs,  immortal 
bacilli,  heaven-sent  miracles,  inhabit  the  air  we  breathe,  the 
food  we  eat,  the  water  we  drink,  poisoning  where  they  fly  and 
infecting  where  they  repose. 


THE  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE  Souu  201 

Science  continually  discloses  malevolent  agencies,  hitherto 
undetected,  which  vainly  try  to  extirpate,  or  to  build  frail  and 
feeble  barriers  against  their  depredations. 

Theology  complacently  announces  that  for  the  majority  of 
the  human  race  this  tough  world  is  the  prelude  to  an  eternity 
in  hell.  If  any  trembling  sinner  desires  comfort  and  consola 
tion  in  these  awful  miseries,  let  him  read  the  sermon  of  Jon 
athan  Edwards  from  the  text,  "Their  feet  shall  slide  in  due 
time." 

Hell  would  be  preferable  to  annihilation,  it  may  be,  but 
this  alternative  does  not  satisfy  those  who  repeat  the  everlast 
ing  interrogatory  of  Job,  "If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?" 

Nature,  like  a  witness  in  contempt,  stands  mute.  Science 
returns  from  its  remotest  excursions,  shakes  its  head,  and, 
smiling,  puts  the  question  by.  Christ  contented  Himself  with 
a  few  vague  and  unsatisfactory  generalities :  ' '  Whoso  liveth 
and  belie veth  in  Me  shall  never  die;"  "In  My  Father's  house 
are  many  mansions."  Saint  Paul,  the  greatest  of  the  teach - 
eis  of  Christianity,  could  only  respond  by  a  misleading  analogy. 
He  knew  the  wheat  which  is  reaped  is  not  that  which  is  sown. 
The  harvest  is  a  succession,  not  a  resurrection. 

The  evidences  of  a  superintending  moral  purpose  and 
design  in  the  affairs  of  men  are  faint  and  few.  The  wicked 
prosper,  the  good  suffer.  The  problems  of  sin,  pain,  and  evil 
are  insoluble.  Visiting  the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  chil 
dren  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation,  making  the  innocent 
suffer  for  the  offenses  of  the  guilty,  is  an  unjust  and  cruel  law 
that  ought  to  be  repealed.  Civilization  has  long  since  rejected 
the  principle  from  human  jurisprudence.  Even  treason,  the 
highest  crime  known  to  its  code,  no  longer  works  corruption 
of  blood  or  forfeiture  of  estate. 


202  JOHN  JAMES  INGAI,LS. 

Unless  man  is  immortal,  the  moral  universe,  so  far  as  he  is 
concerned,  disappears  altogether.  If  he  does  not  survive  the 
grave,  it  makes  no  difference  to  him  whether  there  be  God  or 
devil,  or  heaven  or  hell.  And  it  must  be  not  only  a  survival, 
but  with  a  continuity  of  consciousness  as  well,  if  the  evil  are  to 
be  punished  and  the  good  rewarded  hereafter.  To  inflict  the 
penalty  of  violated  law  upon  a  being  who  does  not  know  that 
he  has  offended,  is  not  punishment,  but  revenge.  Conscious 
identity  may  not  be  a  necessary  condition  of  intelligence,  but 
it  is  essential  in  morals.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  being  may 
know  without  knowing  that  he  knows;  but  he  cannot  sin  with 
out  knowing  that  he  sins,  nor  be  punished  unless  he  knows 
for  what  wrong  he  suffers. 

Frederick  \V.  Robertson,  the  eminent  English  divine,  closes 
one  of  his  discourses  by  saying : 

"Search  through  tradition,  history,  the  world  within  you  and  the 
world  without— except  in  Christ,  there  is  not  the  shadow  of  a  shade  of 
proof  that  man  survives  the  grave." 

Many  years  ago  I  heard  a  distinguished  American  orator 
deliver  a  lecture  upon  the  evidences  of  immortality  outside  the 
Bible.  In  the  stress  and  pressure  of  the  closing  days  of  a  short 
session  of  Congress,  he  held  the  rapt  and  breathless  attention 
of  an  immense  audience,  comprising  all  that  was  most  cultured, 
brilliant,  and  renowned  in  the  social  and  official  life  of  the 
capital. 

He  dwelt  with  remarkable  effectiveness  and  power  upon 
the  fact  tnat  nowhere  in  Nature,  from  the  highest  to  the  low 
est,  was  an  instinct,  an  impulse,  a  desire  implanted,  but  that 
ultimately  were  found  the  conditions  and  the  opportunities 
for  its  fullest  realization.  He  instanced  the  wild  fowl  that, 
moved  by  some  mysterious  impulse,  start  on  their  prodigious 


THE:  IMMORTALITY  OF  THE;  SOUL.  203 

migrations  from  the  frozen  fens  of  the  Pole  and  reach  at  last 
the  shining  South  and  the  summer  seas;  the  fish  that  from 
tropic  gulfs  seek  their  spawning-grounds  in  the  cool,  bright 
rivers  of  the  North ;  the  bees  that  find  in  the  garniture  of  fields 
and  forests  the  treasure  with  which  they  store  their  cells;  and 
even  the  wolf,  the  lion,  and  the  tiger  that  are  provided  with 
their  prey. 

Turning  to  humanity,  he  alluded  to  the  brevity  of  life;  its 
incompleteness ;  its  aimless,  random,  and  fragmentary  careers ; 
its  tragedies,  its  injustice,  its  sorrows  and  separations.  Then 
he  referred  to  the  insatiable  hunger  for  knowledge;  the  efforts 
of  the  unconquerable  mind  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  the 
future;  its  capacity  to  comprehend  infinity  and  eternity;  its 
desire  for  the  companionship  of  the  departed;  its  unquench 
able  aspirations  for  immortality;  and  he  asked,  "Why  should 
God  keep  faith  with  the  beast,  the  bee,  the  fish,  and  the  fowl, 
and  cheat  man?" 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GENERAL  GRANT— 
AN  ENIGMA. 


The  character  and  destiny  of  Grant  must  always  remain 
among  the  enigmas  of  history. 

No  man  ever  did  so  much  of  whom  so  little  could  have  been 
predicted. 

At  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War  he  had  come  nearly  to 
middle  life,  having  failed  in  every  undertaking,  and  was  sunk 
in  hopeless  poverty  and  obscurity. 

He  was  destitute  of  those  personal  traits  and  qualities  that 
attract  and  charm  and  make  their  possesor  popular  and 
beloved. 

Taciturn,  diffident,  and  out  of  countenance  with  the  world, 
he  had  few  acquaintances,  fewer  friends,  and  no  influential 
associates  among  the  civil  and  military  leaders  of  his  time. 

There  was  not  a  county  in  the  State  of  Illinois  that  did 
not  contain,  in  1861,  some  inhabitant  who  might  have  been 
more  reasonably  expected  to  have  been  commander-in-chief 
of  the  armies  of  the  United  States  and  twice  its  President, 
than  this  humble,  indigent  employee  in  the  village  store  at 
Galena,  Ulysses  Simpson  Grant. 

But  in  four  years  that  dejected  subordinate,  upon  whom 
Fortune  seemed  to  have  exhausted  its  resentment,  had  com_ 
manded  greater  armies  than  Caesar,  had  fought  more  battles 
than  Napoleon,  and  inscribed  his  name  among  the  foremost 
warriors  of  the  world. 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GENERAL  GRANT.  205 

In  personal  intercourse  he  was  sometimes  so  commonplace 
and  prosaic  that  it  was  quite  impossible  to  conceive  of  him  a 
celebrity.  He  apparently  placed  no  such  estimation  on  him 
self.  He  betrayed  no  exultation  over  his  victories.  He  was 
not  stirred  by  any  passion  for  glory.  He  seemed  devoid  of 
imagination.  He  was  incapable  of  apostrophizing  the  "Sun 
of  Austerlitz,"  like  Napoleon,  or  personifying  the  forty  cent 
uries  that  looked  down  from  the  summit  of  the  Pyramids. 
He  was  rather  the  imperturbable  incarnation  of  plain,  vigor 
ous  common  sense,  that  would  plan  campaigns  and  fight  bat 
tles  as  if  they  were  the  ordinary  occupations  of  daily  life. 

He  is  popularly  supposed  to  have  been  vacant  and  dull  in 
conversation,  but  while  at  times  irresponsive,  again  he  was 
alert,  vivacious,  and  almost  inspired. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  second  term  as  President  there  was 
a  dinner  at  the  White  House.  The  Electoral  Commission  was 
sitting  to  decide  the  disputed  succession  between  Tilden  and 
Hayes.  It  was  a  dark  and  ominous  time.  The  most  threat 
ening  since  Appomattox.  Revolution  was  imminent.  Hen 
ry  Watterson  had  just  issued  his  proclamation  calling  for 
one  hundred  thousand  unarmed  Kentuckians  to  assemble  at 
Washington,  January  8,  to  watch  the  count.  The  subsiding 
passions  of  the  war,  the  frenzies  of  reconstruction,  were  inflamed 
to  exasperation.  The  air  was  heavy  with  portents. 

After  dinner  the  guests  strolled  into  the  library  for  coffee 
and  cigars.  Conversation  turned  to  the  situation  and  its  per 
ils.  Its  tone  was  depressed.  The  President  said  nothing, 
exhibited  no  interest,  but  smoked  with  deliberate  stolidity. 
In  a  pause,  Burnside  turned  to  him  and  said:  "Well,  Gen 
eral,  what  do  you  think — is  there  going  to  be  any  trouble?" 

After  a   perceptible  interval,   Grant  appeared   to  emerge 


206  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

from  a  reverie.  His  features  were  transformed,  and  with  a 
voice  and  manner  as  if  he  were  at  the  head  of  a  million  men, 
and  in  a  suppressed  tone  of  indescribable  intensity,  he  said: 
"No,  there  will  be  no  trouble.  But  it  has  been  one  rule  of  my 
life  to  be  always  ready." 

As  uttered,  it  was  the  most  immense,  impressive,  and  preg 
nant  sentence  to  which  I  ever  listened. 

The  talk  instantly  turned  to  other  themes,  and  the  Presi 
dent  became  chatty,  voluble,  and  reminiscent.  He  referred 
to  the  agonizing  sick  headache  from  which  he  suffered  the 
night  before  the  surrender,  and  how  it  left  him  on  the  receipt 
of  Lee's  note  as  suddenly  as  the  "shutting  of  a  jack-knife." 
He  said  he  never  saw  General  Lee  but  once  after  the  close  of 
the  war.  He  called  at  the  Executive  Mansion  as  he  was  pass 
ing  through  on  his  way  to  New  York  on  some  railroad  trans 
action  for  the  State  of  Virginia.  In  the  course  of  the  conver 
sation,  Lee  said  he  could  hardly  understand  why  he  was  sent 
on  the  mission,  because  he  knew  absolutely  nothing  about 
railroads.  Grant  stated  that  he  replied  jocularly  that  they 
together  had  considerable  to  do  with  railroads  in  Virginia  for  a 
number  of  years,  but  Lee  never  smiled ;  which,  the  President 
thought,  evinced  a  lack  of  "the  saving  sense  of  humor." 

Toward  midnight  some  one  started  a  discussion  as  to  the 
most  desirable  period  of  life:  infancy,  with  its  helpless  uncon 
sciousness;  childhood,  with  its  innocent  enjoyment;  youth, 
with  its  passions;  manhood,  with  its  achievements;  age,  with 
its  repose.  Some  preferred  one  and  some  another.  Grant  had 
relapsed  into  silence  again.  Logan  appealed  to  him  for  his 
opinion.  He  pondered  a  moment  and  replied:  "Well,  so  far 
as  I  am  concerned,  I  should  like  to  be  born  again."  This 
seemed  a  very  clever  way  of  saying  that  he  had  enjoyed  life  all 


THE  CHARACTER  OF  GENERAL  GRANT.  207 

the  way  through.  Logan  retorted  that  he  knew  of  no  man  who 
stood  in  greater  need  of  being  born  again,  and  then  we  all  went 
home. 


WHY  CHRISTIANITY  HAS  TRIUMPHED. 


In  estimating  the  population  of  the  world  at  fifteen  hun 
dred  millions,  a  fraction  less  than  one-third,  including  Greek 
and  Roman  Catholics,  Protestants,  Armenians,  Jews,  and  Abys- 
sinians,  are  catalogued  as  followers  of  Christianity.  Of  the 
thousand  millions  remaining,  about  three  hundred  millions, 
chiefly  Chinese,  profess  Confucianism  and  Taoism,  one  hun 
dred  and  forty  millions  are  classified  as  devotees  of  Hindooism 
and  Buddhism,  one  hundred  and  eighty  millions  of  Moham 
medanism,  and  fourteen  millions,  principally  Japanese,  of 
Shintoism;  the  rest  are  Polytheists  in  various  degrees  of 
barbarism. 

Worship  is  thus  instinctive,  inherent,  and  universal  in  the 
human  race.  Every  religion  has  its  own  God,  its  code,  and  its 
creed,  j 

As  nations  advance  in  intelligence  and  morals,  gods  are 
dethroned,  codes  modified,  and  creeds  abandoned. 

The  God  of  the  Puritans,  Who  was  a  consuming  fire,  Who 
hated  sinners  and  condemned  them  to  eternal  torment  in  a 
hell  of  fire  and  brimstone,  has  gone  with  Jove  and  the  other 
mythological  monsters  of  antiquity  to  the  lumber-room  of 
history.  In  His  place  we  have  now  the  paternal  reign  of  a  con 
stitutional  Monarch,  a  wise  and  benevolent  Legislator,  Who  is 
subject  to  the  limitations  of  the  statutes  which  He  himself  has 
made. 

208 


WHY  CHRISTIANITY  HAS  TRIUMPHED.  209 

Sermons  that  congregations  heard  a  century  ago  with  awe 
and  reverence  would  now  excite  indignation  and  abhorrence. 
Doctrines  once  deemed  indispensable  to  personal  salvation 
are  rejected  as  an  insult  to  the  Supreme  Being. 

The  clergyman  who  should  announce  his  belief  in  the  pre 
destination  of  sinners  to  perdition,  or  the  eternal  damnation 
of  unbaptized  infants,  would  be  an  ecclesiastical  outlaw. 
Man  has  outgrown  these  horrible  fictions  and  has  invested 
God  with  higher  and  nobler  attributes. 

Some  philosopher  has  said  that  everyone's  idea  of  God  is 
an  indefinitely  enlarged  conception  of  himself,  and  that  we 
make  our  heaven  and  hell. 

In  any  event,  the  human  element  prevails  largely  in  all  the 
great  religions  of  the  earth.  They  are  imperfect  and  defect 
ive.  They  are  disappointing  in  their  results.  If  of  divine 
origin,  they  do  not  accomplish  what  might  be  expected.  Rev 
elation  discloses  too  much  and  not  enough.  Inspiration  leaves 
unsaid  what  we  most  desire  to  know. 

Vice,  crime,  sin,  and  evil  are  rampant.  Miserable  mul 
titudes  everywhere  are  sunken  in  poverty,  ignorance,  and 
unspeakable  degradation.  To  assume,  therefore,  as  many  do, 
that  those  who  do  not  accept  the  social  and  political  ideas  of 
Christendom  are  pagans,  and  that  all  who  reject  our  ethics 
and  theology  are  heathen,  is,  perhaps,  the  most  impressive 
exhibition  of  that  intellectual  arrogance  which  is  the  chief 
characteristic  of  our  race. 

In  considering  the  relative  rank  and  value  of  the  four  great 
religious  systems,  they  must  be  judged  by  their  effect  upon 
society  and  their  relations  to  the  history  of  mankind.  The 
spiritual  element  must  be  eliminated,  because  this  concerns 
the  indivdual  exclusively,  and  is  a  matter  where  the  stranger 


210  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

intermeddlcth  not.  It  is  a  vast  theme  of  stupendous  propor 
tions,  of  which  the  wisest  must  speak  with  diffidence. 

One  of  the  promises  of  the  Decalogue  is  length  of  days 
"in  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth  thee,"  and  national 
longevity  is  evidence  of  the  smiles  of  approving  Providence. 

The  believers  in  Confucius  have  no  reason  to  distrust  their 
faith  in  his  teachings. 

The  history  of  China  goes  back  into  the  twilight  of  time. 
That  vast  empire  has  resisted  the  vicissitudes  of  destiny  and 
the  fatigues  of  the  centuries.  It  has  witnessed  the  birth  and 
growth  and  decay  of  historic  kingdoms,  and  survives  in  ven 
erable  grandeur  to  tempt  the  cupidity  and  injustice  of  nations 
that  were  unborn  when  China  was  in  the  maturity  of  its  power. 

The  Hindoo  has  perhaps  reached  loftier  heights  of  abstract 
metaphysical  speculation;  but  neither  Buddhism,  nor  Confu 
cianism,  nor  Mohammedanism,  nor  Judaism,  has  set  up  the 
ideal  standard  for  mankind  to  follow. 

It  is  claimed  by  the  followers  of  Christianity  that  no  other 
religion  has  exerted  such  immense  influence  upgn  government, 
society,  and  civilization.  Its  sanction  rests  entirely  on  the 
life,  example,  teachings,  and  death  of  Jesus  of  Nazareth,  for 
whom  theologians  claim  much  more  than  He  ever  claimed 
Himself.  He  was  poor,  ignorant,  and  of  dubious  origin.  He 
had  no  learning.  It  is  not  known  that  He  could  read  or  write. 
He  left  no  manuscripts.  His  life  to  the  age  of  thirty  was 
passed  in  manual  labor  as  a  carpenter.  His  associates,  male 
and  female,  were  illiterate  and  obscure.  He  had  no  home, 
nor  any  domestic  relations.  He  lived  on  alms,  and  led  a  harm 
lessly  vagrant  life,  sometimes  in  solitude,  and  then  wandering 
about  in  the  fields  among  the  mountains  and  by  the  sea,  talk 
ing  familiarly  to  His  companions,  to  chance  acquaintances, 


WHY  CHRISTIANITY  HAS  TRIUMPHED.  211 

and  delivering  informal  discourses  to  the  crowds  of  rustics 
that  gathered  occasionally  at  the  reports  of  His  miracles.  He 
healed  the  sick  and  raised  the  dead. 

He*  seemed  to  have  special  hatred  for  shams,  pretenders, 
and  hypocrites,  and  denounced  them  with  violence;  but  to 
other  sinners  He  was  gentle  and  lenient.  His  public  career 
was  less  than  three  years,  and  His  recorded  deeds  and  words 
would  not  fill  two  pages  of  a  newspaper.  They  were  repeated 
by  word  of  mouth,  and  not  permanently  collected  till  nearly  a 
century  after  His  death. 

His   life   was   pure  and  blameless,    and   He  was   crucified 
rather  as  the  victim  of  political  prejudice  than  as  a  martyr  for, 
His  religious  opinions. 

Whatever  view  may  be  held  as  to  His  divinity,  He  is  the 
central  character  of  human  destiny,  the  one  colossal  figure  of 
human  history.  Caesar  and  Herod  and  Pilate,  the  kings,  con 
querors,  and  philosophers  of  that  day,  are  names.  No  one  cares 
that  they  lived  or  died,  but  Christ  remains  the  living  and  most 
potential  force  in  modern  society. 

When  He  announced  the  fatherhood  of  God  and  the  broth 
erhood  of  man,  and  the  immeasurable  value  of  the  hum 
blest  human  soul,  He  made  kings  and  despots  and  tyrants 
impossible. 

He  laid  the  foundation  of  democratic  self-government  and 
the  sovereignty  of  the  people.  From  His  teachings  have  come 
the  emancipation  of  childhood,  the  elevation  of  woman,  and 
our  rich  and  splendid  heritage  of  religious,  civil,  and  constitu 
tional  liberty. 

Indeed,  without  disparaging  Confucius,  Buddha,  or  Mo 
hammed,  it  may  be  safe  to  assert  that  through  Christianity 
alone  has  civilization  come  into  the  world.  On  the  contin- 


212 


JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 


ued  activity  of  its  beneficent  forces  we  must  depend  for  its 
preservation;  for  the  completion  of  man's  conquest  over 
Nature;  for  the  realization  of  the  dream  of  the  universal 
Republic. 


GETTYSBURG  ORATION. 

1890. 


Mr.  President:  The  Battlefield  of  Gettysburg!  What  a 
thronging  tumult  of  emotions,  of  joy  and  grief,  of  triumph,  of 
sadness,  of  defeat  and  final  victory,  rises  in  the  heart  at  the 
repetition  of  that  name,  the  Battlefield  of  Gettysburg!  The 
high  tide  of  the  Rebellion  broke  upon  these  placid  and  fertile 
fields  and  along  these  reverberating  and  rocky  steeps  in  a 
tumultuous  surf  of  blood  and  flame  that  ebbed  away  to  Appo_ 
mattox.  Three  summer  days  changed  the  annals  of  this 
peaceful  hamlet  to  an  epoch  never  to  be  forgotten  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  human  race,  and  gave  to  this  locality,  hitherto 
unknown,  an  immortality  like  that  of  Marathon,  of  Marston 
Moor,  and  Waterloo.  The  orator  who  speaks,  and  who  shall 
speak  upon  every  recurrence  of  this  anniversary  so  long  as  time 
shall  endure,  no  matter  how  great  his  fame  or  his  name,  will  be 
dwarfed  by  the  stupendous  tragedy  that  was  enacted  here,  and 
will  stand  in  the  presence  of  that  mighty  and  colossal  shadow, 
that  greatest  victim  of  the  war,  who,  almost  within  the  sound  of 
my  voice  from  the  spot  where  we  now  stand,  dedicated  this 
field  as  a  final  resting-place  for  those  who  here  died  that  the 
Nation  might  live;  and  in  obedience  to  that  impulse  and  that 
instinct,  the  American  people  have  assembled  to-day,  under 
the  holiest  impulse  of  the  human  heart,  to  contemplate  and  con 
sider  the  profoundest  and  most  insoluble  mystery  of  human 
destiny — the  insoluble  problem  of  death.  Those  who  died  that 

213 


214  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  Nation  might  live — and  yet  why  should  we  assemble  to 
scatter  flowers  above  the  dust  of  the  dead,  if  they  are  de 
tached  from  us  and  from  the  interest  that  attaches  them  to- 
us  forever?  We  are  all  under  sentence  of  death,  under  the 
sentence  of  an  inexorable  tribunal  from  whose  verdict  there 
is  neither  exculpation  nor  appeal.  We  have  all  been  con 
demned  to  die.  There  is  no  executive  clemency.  It  is  ap 
pointed  to  all  men  once  to  die,  and  have  we  assembled  here 
merely  to  honor  with  empty  ceremonies  these  heroes  of  the 
Republic  because  they  are  dead?  The  insoluble  mystery  of 
death ! 

These  have  entered  into  the  democracy  of  the  dead.  Those 
who  lie  about  us  are  at  last  at  peace  in  the  republic  of  the  grave, 
in  the  silent  kingdom,  in  the  domairl  of  the  voiceless;  they  are 
at  peace  and  at  rest;  for  them  the  injustice  of  life  has  been 
expiated.  For  more  than  twenty-five  years  they  have  lain 
beneath  the  snowrs  of  winter  and  the  verdure  of  spring  and  the 
splendor  of  summer,  and  each  year  we  assemble  to  pay  rever 
ence  and  homage  to  their  silent  dust. 

"How  sleep  the  brave  who  sink  to  rest 
By  all  their  country's  wishes  blest? 
When  Spring,  with  dewy  fingers  cold, 
Returns  to  deck  their  hallowed  mould, 
She  there  shall  deck  a  sweeter  sod 
Than  Fancy's  feet  have  ever  trod." 

TWENTY-FIVE  YEARS  AGO. 

And  thus  it  is  that  we  have  assembled  twenty-five  years 
after  the  last  gun  has  been  fired,  twenty-five  years  after 
the  hostile  flag  has  been  furled,  to  again  pay  the  tribute  of 
our  reverence  and  our  homage  and  our  respect  to  the  dead  that 
sleep  in  the  cemetery  upon  the  battlefield  of  Gettysburg.  It  is 
twenty-five  years,  I  said,  since  the  last  shot  was  fired;  it  is. 


GETTYSBURG  ORATION.  215 

twenty-five  years  since  the  great  hosts  of  freedom  came  from 
a  thousand  battlefields,  from  Gettysburg  to  the  Gulf,  and  were 
marshalled  for  the  last  review.  They  assembled  within  the 
shadow  of  the  great  dome  of  the  Capitol  that  they  had  pro 
tected  and  saved.  The  air  vibrated  with  the  blare  of  bugles 
and  with  the  stirring  blast  of  trumpets.  The  transitory  and 
variable  splendor  of  a  vernal  sun  illuminated  a  pageant  of  impos 
ing  splendor  and  magnificence,  and  in  that  changing  sky,  red 
as  its  sunset  and  its  dawn,  white  as  its  wandering  clouds,  and 
blue  as  its  noonday  deeps,  and  glittering  as  the  constellations 
of  its  midnight  abyss,  above  them  flashed  and  floated  and 
flamed  the  splendor  of  the  flag.  It  was  the  birthday  of  a 
redeemed  and  regenerated  Republic ;  a  host  that  no  man  could 
number,  like  the  sands  of  the  sea  or  the  stars  of  the  sky  for  mul 
titude,  welcomed  from  window  and  casement,  from  balcony 
and  platform  and  cornice  with  tumultuous  acclaim,  the  victori 
ous  legions  of  Sherman,  of  Grant,  of  Logan,  and  of  Hancock, 
while  above  all  the  hearts  of  men,  over  the  breasts  of  women; 
and  in  the  hands  of  children,  and  from  the  dome  and  tower 
and  pinnacle  and  roof  and  spire,  floated  and  flashed  and 
flamed  the  glory  of  the  flag.  And  then,  between  living  walls, 
from  morn  till  night,  and  from  morn  till  night  again,  past  the 
Chief  Magistrate  and  his  staff,  with  martial  tread  and  the  roll 
of  vanishing  drums,  marched  the  soldiers  of  the  Republic,  from 
the  valleys  of  the  Kennebec,  the  Connecticut,  the  Hudson,  the 
Ohio,  and  the  Mississippi — a  peaceful  army  to  guard  the  homes, 
enforce  the  laws,  and  defend  the  honor  of  a  people  determined 
to  be  free ;  and  above  those  resolute  squadrons  with  glittering 
bayonets  and  gleaming  swords,  and  above  the  faded  and  elo 
quent  ensigns  that  were  inscribed  with  the  names  of  the  battles 


2i6  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

in  which  they  had  been  borne  to  victory,  flashed  and  flamed 
the  redeemed  and  regenerated  glory  of  the  flag. 

Fellow-citizens,  it  was  their  flag.  Had  it  not  been  for  their 
sacrifices,  for  their  devotion  and  that  of  their  comrades  that 
sleep  the  last  sleep  in  the  cemeteries  of  the  Republic  to-day, 
whose  graves  have  been  decorated  with  flowers,  this  flag  would 
have  been  a  dishonored  rag.  [Applause.] 

WHAT   REBEL    SUCCESS   WOULD   HAVE   MEANT. 

The  centennial  anniversary  of  the  establishment  of  the 
Republic  would  not  have  been  celebrated.  The  geography  of 
this  continent  would  have  been  changed.  The  United  States  of 
America  would  have  disappeared  from  the  map,  and  in  its  place 
would  have  appeared  an  aggregated  and  incoherent  mass  of 
petty  provinces,  discordant  and  belligerent,  succeeding  that 
great  nationality  whose  flag  now  waves  triumphant  from  the 
Saskatchewan  to  the  Rio  Grande,  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the 
Pacific.  [Applause.]  Had  more  than  two  millions  of  the  soldiers 
of  the  Republic  not  offered  their  lives,  their  health,  their  strength 
for  the  protection  of  the  flag,  we  should  to-day  be  celebrating 
the  twenty-ninth  anniversary  of  the  founding  of  the  Southern 
Confederacy,  founded  on  secession  and  disunion;  the  Declar 
ation  of  Independence  would  have  been  an  antiquarian  relic; 
the  Fourth  of  July  would  have  been  the  jubilee  of  despots;  the 
Constitution  would  have  been  like  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and 
Persians,  and  the  glories  and  the  traditions  of  our  history 
would  have  been  dispersed  and  separated  like  the  trivial  assets 
of  an  insolvent  partnership ;  the  sacrifices  and  the  achievements 
of  the  pioneers  of  our  civilization  would  have  been  in  vain; 
Bunker  Hill  and  Ticonderoga  and  Yorktown,  the  heroes  of  all 
our  wars,  the  eloquence  of  all  our  sages,  the  achievements  of 


GETTYSBURG  ORATION.  217 

the  fathers,  the  eloquence  of  Wirt  and  Henry  and  Clay,  and 
Calhoun  and  Webster,  all  that  is  inspiring  in  our  history,  all 
that  is  resplendent  in  our  example,  would  be  sentences  to-day 
in  the  school-books,  like  legends  of  the  nations  that  are  dead. 
Had  these  comrades  whose  graves  we  have  decorated  with 
flowers  to-day  not  died  for  the  flag,  liberty  upon  this  planet 
would  have  been  an  epithet,  and  popular  govenment  would 
have  been  a  definition;  freedom  of  thought,  of  conscience, 
would  have  been  empty  phrases,  whose  meaning  would  have 
been  sought  in  the  dictionaries,  and  not  in  the  statute-books  of 
a  free  people ;  our  past  would  have  been  a  catastrophe  contem 
plated  by  tyrants  with  derision,  and  by  their  victims  with 
despair ;  our  present  would  have  been  an  armistice,  with  stand 
ing  armies  in  every  capital,  and  garrisons  and  fortresses  and 
custom-houses  upon  every  frontier ;  our  future  would  have  been 
an  abysss  which  no  foresight  could  predict,  and  against  whose 
dangers  no  safeguard  could  have  been  found. 

Other  wars,  Mr.  President,  and  comrades  of  the  Grand 
Army  of  the  Republic,  have  been  fought  for  conquest,  they 
have  been  fought  for  ambition,  they  have  been  fought  for 
revenge,  they  have  been  fought  for  dynasties  and  for  thrones ; 
but  no  such  passions  animated  the  souls  of  the  soldiers  of  the 
Republic.  They  went  to  battle  for  ideas;  they  endured  the 
march,  the  bivouac,  hospitals,  wounds,  diseases,  hardships, 
and  death,  to  save  our  cities  from  sack,  our  homes  from  spolia 
tion,  our  flag  from  dishonor,  and  our  country  from  distraction, 
in  order  that  all  men  everywhere  might  be  free,  that  the  States 
might  be  indestructible,  that  the  Union  might  be  indissoluble, 
and  that  this  Nation  might  be  perpetual.  [Applause.] 


218  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

IF  THE  SOUTH  HAD  TRIUMPHED. 

Ideas,  comrades  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  are 
immortal ;  they  never  die ;  they  cannot  be  annihilated ;  foes  do 
not  destroy  them.     It  may  be  made  inconvenient  or  uncom 
fortable  to  express  them,  but  they  never  become  extinct,  and  I 
have  often  thought  what  would  have  been  my  emotions,  what 
would  have  been  your  emotions,  had  the  endeavors  of  those 
who  led  the  Rebellion  in   1861  been  finally  and  fully  accom 
plished.     Suppose  the  dome  of  the  Capitol  had  stooped  to  its 
base,  and  its  ruin  had  been  mirrored  in  the  placid  wave  of  the 
Potomac  that  flows  at  the  foot  of  its  declivity;  that  Robert 
Tombs  and  those  who  followed  him  had  fulfilled  his  insolent 
menace  and  called  the  roll  of  his  slaves  in  the  shadow  of  Bunker 
Hill ;  that  slavery  had  been  made  the  fundamental  law  of  the 
Republic ;  that  its  glorious  stars  had  set  in  disgrace  and  defeat ;. 
that  the  Union  had  been  held  to  be  a  rope  of  sand  depending 
upon  the  whim  or  the  caprice  of  any  member  of  the  Confeder 
ation — what  would  have  been  our  emotions?   What  would  have 
been  your  emotions  had  the  lost  cause  prevailed?     I  confess 
for  myself  that  I  should  never  have  ceased  to  hope,  to  strive, 
that  sometime,  as  the  result  of  some  desperate  battle  in  the 
future,  the  Union,  glorious  and  resplendent,  would  have  been 
restored.     [Applause.]     I  should  not  have  failed  to  have  kept 
in  some  secure  but   sacred   repository  the   Stars   and   Stripes 
which  were  the  symbol  of  the  honor  and  the  emblem  of  the 
glory  of  my  country,  to  which  I  should  have  taught  my  chil 
dren  to  return  with  patriotic  solicitude  and  affectionate  vener 
ation,     [Loud  applause.]     I  said,  fellow-citizens,  ideas  are  im 
mortal,  and  I  am  willing  to  concede  to  others  the  same  rights, 
the  same  privileges,  the  same  beliefs  that  I  claim  for  myself ; 
and  in  view  of  the  occurrences  of  the  last  few  davs  in  the  ex— 


GETTYSBURG  ORATION.  219 

tinct  capital  of  the  extinct  Confederacy,  I  am  inclined  to  be 
lieve  that  the  only  regret  that  our  adversaries  feel  over  the 
result  of  that  controversy  is  that  they  failed  to  succeed, 
[Great  applause.] 

Robert  B.  Lee  was  one  of  the  greatest  soldiers  of  the  age, 
He  was  a  man  of  the  loftiest  personal  character,  of  incorrupt 
ible  private  life,  so  far  as  I  am  advised.  He  had  a  lineage  that 
dated  back  to  the  morning  of  patriotism  in  the  American  Re 
public.  He  was  a  soldier  without  fear  and  without  reproach. 
Two  days  before  he  surrendered  his  commission  he  said,  in  a 
letter  to  his  son : 

'  I  can  anticipate  no  greater  calamity  for  the  country  than  the  disso 
lution  of  the  Union.  It  would  be  an  accumulation  of  all  the  evils  we 
complain  of ;  I  am  willing  to  sacrifice  everything  but  honor  for  its  preser 
vation.  Secession  is  nothing  but  revolution.  The  framers  of  our  Consti 
tution  never  exhausted  so  much  labor,  wisdom,  and  forbearance,  and 
surrounded  it  with  so  many  guards  and  securities,  if  it  was  intended  to  be 
broken  by  every  member  of  the  Confederacy  at  will.  It  was  intended 
for  perpetual  union,  so  expressed  in  the  preamble,  and  for  the  establish 
ment  of  a  government,  not  a  compact,  which  can  only  be  dissolved  by 
revolution,  or  the  consent  of  the  people  in  convention  assembled.  It  is 
idle  to  talk  of  secession.  Anarchy  would  have  been  established,  and  not 
government,  by  Washington,  Hamilton,  Jefferson,  Madison,  and  the  other 
patriots  of  the  Revolution." 

Had  Robert  H.  Lee  adhered  to  those  lofty  and  ennobling 
sentiments,  he  would  to-day  have  been  the  foremost  citizen  of 
this  Republic  in  the  estimation  of  its  people.  He  was  offered 
the  command  of  the  Union  armies.  He  had  been  educated  at 
the  expense  and  under  the  sanction  of  the  Government.  For 
twenty-five  years  his  sword  had  been  drawn  under  the  flag ;  he 
had  taken  an  oath  to  support  and  protect  the  Constitution  of 
the  United  States  against  all  enemies,  foreign  and  domestic; 
and  yet,  within  two  days  after  that  letter  was  written,  he 
resigned  his  commission,  he  violated  his  oath  to  support  the 


220  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Constitution,  the  Government,  and  the  laws  of  the  United 
States,  and  took  the  leadership  of  the  most  causeless  rebellion 
that  has  ever  occurred  since  the  devil  rebelled  against  the  stat 
utes  of  heaven.  [Prolonged  applause.]  And  yet,  by  a  mon 
strous  object-lesson  in  treason,  in  disloyalty,  in  perjury,  in  vio 
lation  of  faith,  of  public  and  private  honor,  upon  the  very  day 
that  has  been,  for  a  quarter  of  a  century,  made  sacred  by  the 
common  concurrence  of  the  loyal  and  patriotic  people  of  the 
Republic  for  the  consecration  of  the  graves  of  the  Union  dead, 
those  who  profess  to  have  accepted  the  results  of  the  war  in 
good  faith,  who  profess  that  they  had  furled  the  flag  of  treason 
and  rebellion  forever,  who  profess  that  they  have  come  back 
under  the  Constitution  and  laws  of  the  United  States  with 
honor  and  patriotism,  choose  this  occasion  of  all  other  anni 
versaries  in  the  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  days  of  the  year, 
with  every  augmentation  of  insolence,  to  say  to  the  rising  gen 
eration  of  the  South,  this  is  an  example  which  they  should 
copy! 

THE   FLAG   OF  TREASON. 

A  Confederate  flag  is  placed  in  the  bronze  hand  of  the 
statue  of  Washington.  [Cries  of  ' 'Shame!"]  What  wonder 
that  the  shadow  and  spirit  of  the  mighty  dead  did  not  stir 
the  unconscious  and  pathetic  dust  at  Mount  Vernon  to  cry  out 
against  the  sacrilege  and  the  blasphemy !  And  everywhere  all 
over  the  capital  of  the  Confederacy,  from  tower  and  dome, 
and  from  roof  and  pinnacle  and  spire,  flamed  the  glory  of  the 
stars  and  the  bars;  and  we  are  told  that  God  alone  knows 
which  was  right. 

I  have  no  desire  upon  this  sacred  occasion,  upon  this  Sab 
bath  day  of  our  institutions,  to  revert  to  any  subject,  to  refer  to 
any  occasion,  to  deal  with  any  thought  that  is  inconsistent 


GETTYSBURG  ORATION.  221 

with  the  solemnity,  the  sacredness,  and  the  consecration  of 
the  hour;  but  unless  the  ideas  for  which  the  dead  who  sleep 
around  us  died  were  right,  unless  the  ideas  of  those  who  op 
posed  them  were  wrong,  then  the  soldier  who  died  in  defense  of 
the  Republic  and  the  institutions  of  his  country  died  in  vain. 
When  a  repentant  rebel  is  caged  as  a  cabinet  minister  and 
made  the  chief  attraction  of  a  peripatetic  menagerie;  called 
out  at  every  railroad  station  and  compelled  to  speak  his  little 
declamation  like  a  naughty  pupil  by  his  master,  telling  the 
multitude  that  he  has  been  very  wicked,  but  means  to  do  bet 
ter,  and  hopes  in  time  to  be  a  good  Yankee,  the  spectacle  is 
edifying  and  instructive.  The  emotions  of  the  captive  may 
be  imagined,  and  the  response  of  the  South  is  significantly 
solid.  We  must  be  reconceived.  We  must  love  each  other. 
We  must  forget.  Let  us  wash  the  crimson  from  our  flag, 
because  it  is  the  hue  of  the  blood  shed  by  patriots  in  defense 
of  their  country;  the  blue  from  its  field,  because  it  was  the 
color  of  our  soldiers'  uniform;  and  the  gold  from  its  stars, 
because  they  shone  on  the  epaulets  of  our  heroes! 

THE  REBEL  LEADER. 

I  heard  one  of  the  chosen  leaders  of  the  Confederate  armies, 
who  was  on  this  very  field,  say  in  a  speech  that  his  estimate  of 
the  war  was  like  that  contained  in  the  epitaph  upon  the  tomb 
stone  in  Kentucky,  which  was  reared  by  a  mourning  father 
above  his  sons  who  had  been  slain,  one  under  the  National  and 
one  under  the  Confederate  flag.  The  inscription  read :  "They 
both  died  for  what  they  believed  to  be  their  duty,  and  God 
only  knows  which  was  right." 

Mr.  President,  and  comrades  of  the  Grand  Army  of  the 
Republic,  to  make  the  sublime  ordinances  of  the  Constitution 


222  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

of  the  United  States  the  supreme  organic  law  of  a  nation  of 
freemen,  to  support  and  defend  it  against  foreign  and  domes 
tic  foes,  2,300,000  citizens  enlisted  and  marched  to  victory; 
250,000  fell  by  bullets,  and  by  diseases  and  marches;  more 
were  disabled  for  life.  Six  billions  of  treasure  were  spent ; 
unnumbered  wives  were  made  widows,  and  unnumbered  inno 
cent  children  were  made  orphans,  and  homes  were  made  des 
olate  in  resisting  an  effort  to  destroy  the  Constitution  and 
substitute  for  the  doctrine  of  allegiance  to  the  Nation  the 
revolting  heresy  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  States;  and  yet  one- 
half  of  the  rising  generation  of  this  Republic  is  being  instructed 
to-day,  twenty-five  years  after  the  struggle  closed,  that  God 
only  knows  which  was  right. 

SLAVERY  DESCRIBED. 

Four  million  human  beings  were  held  in  slavery,  mon 
strous,  inconceivable  in  its  conditions  of  humiliation,  dishon 
or,  and  degradation,  unending  and  unrequited  toil,  helpless 
ignorance,  actions  nameless  and  unspeakable ;  families  separ 
ated  at  the  auction-block,  and  women  and  children  tortured 
with  the  lash.  Seven  States  seceded,  or  attempted  to  secede, 
from  the  Union  to  make  this  system  of  slavery  the  corner 
stone  of  another  social  and  political  fabric,  and  carnage  raged 
on  a  thousand  battlefields  from  Gettysburg  to  the  Gulf. 

At  last,  thank  God!  the  slaves  are  free.  All  men  are  polit 
ically  equal.  The  sun  rises  in  all  his  course  upon  no  master, 
and  sets  upon  no  slave.  All  men,  in  name  at  least,  are  polit 
ically  equal  upon  this  continent.  The  shame  of  the  Republic  is 
washed  out  in  blood.  The  Declaration  of  Independence  is  no 
longer  a  falsehood.  There  are  no  chains.  It  is  no  longer  a 
•crime  to  teach  to  read  the  Bible.  Babes  are  no  longer  begot- 


GETTYSBURG  ORATION.  223 

ten  and  sold  like  the  young  of  beasts.  Liberty  is  the  law  of 
the  land.  You  fought  that  liberty  might  be  universal;  your 
adversaries  fought  that  slavery  might  be  perpetual;  and  yet 
the  rising  generation  in  one  half  of  this  Republic  is  taught 
to-day  that  God  only  knows  which  was  right.  [Applause  and 
laughter.]  I  have  my  opinion  which  was  right.  [Laughter.] 
If  we  were  not  right,  if  liberty  be  not  better  than  slavery,  if 
nationality  be  not  better  than  secession,  then  these  solemn  cer 
emonies  that  we  now  observe  to-day  are  without  significance 
and  without  consecration.  If  we  were  not  right,  then  the  war 
for  the  Union  was  the  greatest  crime  of  all  the  centuries.  If 
we  were  not  right,  then  the  soldiers  of  the  Republic,  instead  of 
being  associated  with  the  heroes  of  every  history  and  the  mar 
tyrs  of  every  religion,  should  take  rank  with  the  successful 
pugilists  in  a  slugging  match  for  the  champion  belt  of  the 
world.  [Cries  of  ' ' Good ! "  and  laughter.]  If  there  was  no  moral 
quality  in  this  contest,  if  the  ideas  and  objects  and  principles 
for  which  we  contended  were  not  right,  then  the  Decalogue 
should  be  repealed,  and  the  distinction,  between  truth  and 
falsehood  should  be  obliterated.  If  we  were  not  right,  then 
national  morality  is  a  fiction,  loyalty  is  a  name,  observance  of 
oath  is  a  foolish  formality,  and  patriotism  is  the  fatal  malady 
of  the  body  politic.  This  insidious  effort  to  reverse  the  ver 
dict  of  history  must  be  resisted,  and  it  is  for  that,  among  other 
purposes,  that  we  are  here  to-day. 

A  PATRIOTIC  DUTY. 

This  is  a  day  of  instruction  as  well  as  of  religion;  it  is  a 
duty  that  we  owe  to  the  future,  that  we  owe  to  those  who  are 
to  come  after  us,  that  we  owe  to  posterity,  that  our  relations 
to  that  great  conflict  should  not  be  misunderstood,  and  that 


224  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

you  should  assert  your  convictions  that  those  of  your  comrades 
who  fell  in^the  defense  of  the  Union,  the  Constitution,  and  the 
Nation  did  not  die  in  vain.  [Applause.] 

It  is  not  necessary  to  disparage  the  bravery  or  question 
the  sincerity  of  your  adversaries  and  antagonists  in  that  strug 
gle.  Let  them,  if  they  will,  tenderly  cherish  the  deeds  of  their 
dead  and  rear  monuments  to  their  memory.  Let  them  pen 
sion  the  veteran  survivors  of  their  armies,  and  observe  with 
appropriate  solemnities  the  anniversaries  of  their  victories  and 
defeats.  Let  them  eulogize  the  lost  cause  if  they  will;  let 
them  worship  their  heroes;  let  them  wear  the  gray  and  carry 
the  stars  and  bars,  if  they  prefer  it  to  the  Star-spangled  Banner 
of  the  Nation.  These  are  matters  of  taste,  of  sentiment,  and 
of  propriety,  which  they  must  decide  for  themselves.  [Laugh 
ter.]  There  is  no  other  nation  on  which  the  sun  shines 
that  would  permit  such  violations  of  patriotism  and  national 
obligation ;  but  they  are  of  the  same  blood  and  lineage  as  our 
selves;  they  are  Americans;  they  are  our  brethren,  so  they 
say.  [Great  laughter.]  But  when  they  assert  that  Lincoln 
and  Davis,  that  Grant  and  Lee,  that  Logan  and  Jackson  are 
equally  entitled  to  the  respect  and  the  reverence  of  mankind, 
and  that  God  only  knows  which  was  right,  it  is  blasphemy,  it 
is  sacrilege,  wrhich  deserves  rebuke  and  condemnation.  [Great 
applause.] 

Fellow-citizens,  the  Union  has  not  been  ungrateful  to  its 
defenders ;  they  have  been  liberally  pensioned  from  the  public 
treasury.  More  than  a  thousand  million  dollars  have  been 
paid  to  the  disabled  survivors  and  the  dependent  relatives  of 
the  dead.  By  some  patriotic  but  unduly  parsimonious  and 
conservative  citizens  this  has  been  characterized  as  wasteful 
and  wanton  extravagance;  but  it  was  a  part  of  the  contract 


GETTYSBURG  ORATION.  225 

under  which  the  soldiers  enlisted.  The  agreement  to  pension 
them  and  their  survivors  if  they  were  slain  was  as  positive 
and  specific  as  the  obligation  to  pay  the  paltry  wages  that  they 
were  to  receive.  One  hundred  and  fourteen  thousand  seven 
hundred  and  forty-two  of  your  comrades  now  occupy  unknown 
graves,  anonymous  and  forgotten  heroes,  of  whom  twenty-four 
thousand  sleep  at  Anderson ville  and  Saulsbury,  the  victims  of 
a  barbarity  which  stands  isolated  and  detached,  without  par 
allel  or  precedent  in  the  annals  of  demoniac  and  stony-hearted 
ferocity.  It  is  claimed  by  those  opposed  to  the  enlargement 
of  the  pension  system  that  liberality  has  been  exerted  beyond 
measure,  and  that  the  Government  has  been  extravagant  in 
its  recognition  of  the  value  of  the  services  of  the  veterans  of 
the  late  war.  This  class  of  critics  is  fond  of  declaring  that  the 
world's  history  affords  no  such  example  of  prodigality  in  the 
payment  of  pensions.  It  might  with  propriety  be  added  that 
modern  history  at  least  affords  no  such  example  of  military 
service.  There  has  been  no  war  in  modern  times  involving 
anything  like  the  number  of  men  engaged,  the  number  of  hos 
tile  collisions,  the  loss  in  battle,  the  wasteful  expenditure  of 
energy,,  -of  money,  and  of  life  in  its  prosecution.  The  Union 
armies  in  the  Rebellion  lost  in  killed  and  wounded  mortally 
upon  the  field  of  battle  110,000;  and  death  from  sickness  in 
camp,  hospital,  and  prison  swells  the  number  to  more  than 
400,000.  The  Germans  in  the  last  war  with  France  overran 
and  subjugated  that  country  with  a  loss  of  less  than  100,000 
killed  and  mortally  wounded  on  the  field ;  the  total  loss  in  all 
the  war  was  less  than  200,000.  The  Union  Army  lost  more 
men  in  suppressing  the  Rebellion  than  the  combined  armies  of 
Europe  have  lost  in  all  the  wars  in  which  they  have  been 
engaged  since  the  campaign  that  closed  at  Waterloo.  We 


226  "JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

lost  more  men  than  Great  Britain  has  lost  on  all  her  fields  of 
battle  in  the  last  five  hundred  years.  This  vast  host  of  400,000 
men  lost  and  disabled  in  battle  would  make  an  army  double 
the  size  of  that  of  Great  Britain  to-day. 

We  have  entered  upon  the  second  century  of  our  national 
existence.  When  this  anniversary  shall  dawn  one  hundred 
years  hence,  the  grave  of  the  last  soldier  of  the  Nation  will  long 
since  have  been  covered  with  the  fragrant  benediction  of  flow 
ers;  but  the  ideas  for  whose  supremacy  they  contended  will 
survive,  and  their  memory  will  be  the  object  of  their  country's 
loftiest  pride  and  its  tenderest  solicitude.  Orators  will  re 
hearse  the  story  of  their  intrepid  prowess,  art  will  portray  upon 
canvas  and  in  marble  and  bronze  the  lineaments  of  the  brave 
and  the  scenes  of  their  daring.  The  area  of  the  Republic  will 
have  been  extended  from  the  Arctic  regions  to  the  warm  waters 
of  the  Caribbean  Sea.  Great  dangers  and  perils  are  to  be 
encountered,  but  they  will  be  overcome.  Our  institutions  have 
cost  too  much  to  be  surrendered  or  destroyed.  They  are 
strongly  entrenched  in,  and  too  zealously  supported  by,  the 
affections  of  the  people.  The  race  problem  in  the  South  will 
be  solved  upon  the  ultimate  basis  of  exact  and  complete  jus 
tice.  Immigration  will  be  restricted  so  that  the  vicious,  the 
ignorant,  the  degraded  feculence  of  foreign  nations  will  not 
be  emptied  into  our  civilization.  Nihilism  and  anarchy  will 
yield  to  social  order,  education,  and  law.  Capital  will  have 
just  compensation,  and  labor  due  reward.  We  shall  have 
liberty  without  license,  taxation  without  oppression,  wealth 
without  ostentation,  opportunities  for  education  commensur 
ate  with  the  desire  to  know,  and  conditions  of  happiness  as 
enlarged  as  the  capacity  to  enjoy. 


GETTYSBURG  ORATION.  227 

We  are  about  to  separate,  perhaps  to  meet  no  more.  Let 
us  bear  from  this  consecrated  place -and  from  this  sacred  hour 
the  injunctions  of  that  great  orator  with  an  allusion  to  whom 
I  began:  "That  this  Nation  under  God  shall  have  a  new 
birth  of  freedom,  and  that  government  of  the  people,  by  the 
people,  and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from  the  earth." 
Let  us  turn  to  the  future  with  renewed  and  deeper  apprecia 
tion  of  the  blessings  that  we  enjoy,  and  of  the  duties  that  we 
must  perform  in  order  "that  this  Nation  uncter  God  shall 
have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  government  of  the  peo 
ple,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  shall  not  perish  from 
the  earth."  Sublime  and  impressive  aspiration — fit  to  be 
engraved  above  the  portals  of  Liberty's  chosen  temple,  worthy 
to  be  inscribed  in  every  patriot's  heart — "That  this  Nation 
under  God  shall  have  a  new  birth  of  freedom,  and  that  govern 
ment  of  the  people,  by  the  people,  and  for  the  people,  shall 
not  perish  from  the  earth."  [Loud  and  prolonged  applause.] 


ADDRESS. 


(Delivered  at  Osawatomie,  Kansas,  August  30,  1877,  by  John  J.  Ingalls 

upon  the  occasion  of  the  dedication  of  a  monument  to  the 

memory  of  John  Brown  and  his  associates.) 

Mr.  President:  We  have  assembled  to  commemorate  with 
solemn  rites  a  sacred  anniversary  upon  consecrated  ground. 

Reverent  hands  have  summoned  from  the  quarry  and 
erected  here  this  votive  cenotaph,  as  a  perpetual  and  enduring 
token  and  attestation  of  remembrance  and  honor  for  the  heroic 
deeds  of  historic  men.  Labor  has  forgotten  his  task  and 
Pleasure  her  solace,  that  this  day  may  be  devoted  to  patri 
otic  meditation  and  the  recollection  of  august  events.  The 
devotees  of  liberty  have  repaired  hither,  as  pilgrims  to  their 
shrine,  to  dedicate  by  formal  ceremony  this  monument  as  a 
definite  assurance  to  all  the  generations  of  Kansas  freemen 
who  shall  come  after  them,  that  upon  this  day  they  recalled 
with  fervent  gratitude  the  costly  sacrifices  of  freedom's  pio 
neers,  and  that  upon  this  day  they  renewed  and  repeated  their 
unalterable  allegiance  and  loyalty  to  those  ideas  of  truth  and 
justice  on  which  the  State  was  builded,  and  for  which  these 
martyrs  lived,  and  fought,  and  died. 

Most  nations  have  had  pre-historic  periods  of  fable  and 
mystery.  Their  pregnancy  and  birth  have  been  ®bscure. 
They  have  emerged  from  degraded  and  barbarous  germina 
tion.  The  historian  must  vaguely  or  vainly  conjecture  why 
Rome  was  builded  on  her  seven  hills,  or  Athens  on  the  Attic 

228 


ADDRESS.  229 

peninsula.  The  origin  even  of  the  great  nations  of  modern 
times  is  veiled  in  profoundest  obscurity.  Their  annals  recede 
through  the  twilight  of  legend  and  tradition,  and  are  lost  in 
darkness  and  silence.  But  it  is  not  so  in  America.  The  whole 
fabric  of  our  social  and  political  system  has  been  reared  in  an 
intense  blaze  of  uninterrupted  light.  The  sublime  spectacle 
of  the  building  of  a  nation  has  been  disclosed  to  mankind. 

In  1606  the  territory  in  America  claimed  by  England  was 
divided  into  two  parts  by  King  James  the  First,  called  North  and 
South  Virginia,  the  former  extending  from  the  mouth  of  the 
'  Hudson  to  Newfoundland,  and  the  other  from  the  Potomac  to 
Cape  Fear.     Two  companies  were  immediately  formed  for  the 
colonization  of  the  country,  and  in  1607  the  London  company 
dispatched  three  ships  laden  with  105  emigrants,  who,  on  the 
1 3th  of  May,  landed  at  Jamestown  and  founded  the  State  of 
Virginia.     Captain  John  Smith,  who  was  the  master  spirit  of 
the  expedition  and  has  left  a  history  of  the  enterprise,  says  that 
these  colonists  were  ' '  unruly  sparks  packed  off  by  their  friends 
to  escape  worse  destinies    at  home;  poor  gentlemen,  broken 
tradesmen,  footmen,  and  such  as  were  much  fitter  to  spoil  and 
ruin  a  commonwealth  than  to  help  to  raise  or  maintain  one." 
They  were  mostly  worthless,  profligate,  and  dissolute  adven 
turers,  having  no  definte  objects  but  to  discover  gold-mines  or 
find  a  passage  to  the  South  Sea.     They  lived  improvidently 
in  idleness,   squandered  their  substance  in  rioting,   and  fell 
ready  victims  to  the  implacable  savages  by  whom  they  were 
surrounded.     They  were  governed  by  harsh  laws,  in  whose 
enactment  they  had  no  voice,  and  for  one  hundred  years  were 
reinforced   by  convicted  felons  who  were  sold  as  servants  to 
the  planters,  who  also  secured  their  wives  by  purchase,  the 
average  price  being  one  hundred  pounds  of  tobacco,  at  that 


230  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

time  worth  about  seventy-five  dollars.  In  1671,  Sir  William 
Berkeley,  in  his  responses  to  questions  submitted  to  him  by 
the  plantation  committee  of  the  Privy  Council,  gives  a  vivid 
picture  of  the  State  of  Virginia  at  that  time.  He  estimates 
the  population  at  40,000,  including  2,000  black  slaves  and 
6,000  Christian  servants,  of  whom  about  1,500  were  yearly 
imported,  chiefly  convicts  from  the  prisons  of  England.  There 
were  forty-eight  parishes,  and  the  clergy  were  well  paid. 
"But,"  adds  the  Governor,  "I  thank  God  there  are  no  free 
schools  nor  printing,  and  I  hope  we  shall  not  have  these  hun 
dred  years;  for  learning  has  brought  disobedience  and  heresy 
and  sects  into  the  world,  and  printing  has  divulged  them,  and 
libels  against  the  best  government.  God  keep  us  from  both!" 
The  aspirations  of  this  devout  and  lofty  soul  have  been  real 
ized.  God  has  kept  them  from  both,  and  the  history  of  that 
portion  of  America  is  a  living  commentary  upon  the  value  of  a 
system  which  banishes  the  free  school  and  repudiates  the 
printing-press. 

In  1620  the  passengers  of  the  Mayflower  landed  at  Ply 
mouth  in  North  Virginia. 

"A  grateful  posterity,"  says  Bancroft,  "has  marked  the  rock  which 
first  received  their  footsteps.  The  consequences  of  that  day  are  con 
stantly  unfolding  themselves  as  time  advances.  It  was  the  origin  of  New 
England ;  it  was  the  planting  of  the  New  England  institutions.  Inquisitive 
historians  have  loved  to  mark  every  vestige  of  the  Pilgrims;  poets  of  the 
purest  minds  have  commemorated  their  virtues;  the  noblest  genius  has 
been  called  into  exercise  to  display  their  merits  worthily,  and  to  trace  the 
consequences  of  their  daring  enterprise.  As  they  landed,  their  institutions 
were  already  perfected.  Democratic  liberty  and  independent  Christian 
worship  at  once  existed  in  America." 

For  more  than  two  centuries  the  colonies  of  North  and 
South  Virginia  had  unrestricted  room  for  their  expansion  and 
development,  and  the  results  of  their  antagonistic  ideas  can  be 


ADDRESS.  231 

scrutinized  and  contrasted.  We  know  the  moment  when  the 
Pilgrims  perilously  disembarked  upon  the  sandy  hem  of  the 
unoccupied  continent.  Hour  by  hour  for  two  hundred  and 
fifty-seven  years  we  can  trace  the  path  of  themselves  and 
their  posterity.  Inch  by  inch  we  can  follow  their  march 
through  the  forests,  across  the  mountains  and  rivers  and 
prairies  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  Sea.  We  know,  for 
they  have  told  us,  the  ideas,  the  purposes,  the  convictions,  the 
hopes,  the  fears,  of  the  founders  of  this  Christian  common 
wealth.  We  observe  the  inconceivable  energy  with  which  the 
principles  of  those  exiles  have  been  disseminated,  and  the  results 
which  have  followed  their  recognition  as  the  foundation  of 
a  system  of  government;  innumerable  cities  and  habitations; 
deserts  and  wildernesses  reclaimed  from  savage  solitude;  har 
bors  and  beacons  to  warn  and  shelter  a  vast  commerce  from 
the  hazards  of  the  deep ;  costly  highways,  bridges,  canals,  and 
railroads  to  facilitate  interior  intercourse ;  tranquil  institutions ; 
orderly  methods  for  the  administration  of  justice;  education 
universally  diffused ;  morality  everywhere  prevalent,  and  relig 
ion  assuaging  the  inevitable  griefs  of  this  world  with  the  hope 
of  eternal  reparation  in  that  which  is  to  come. 

Attracted  by  the  inducements  of  a  civilization  which  ele 
vates  every  citizen  into  absolute  freedom;  which  emancipates 
him  from  the  chains  of  customs,  creeds,  and  sects ;  which  stim  - 
ulates  industry  by  dignifying  labor  and  generously  rewarding 
toil;  which  opens  the  prizes  of  ambition  to  all;  multitudes  of 
the  discontented  and  aspiring  have  thronged  hither  from  other 
lands  only  to  be  fused  and  blended  by  the  predominant  force 
of  the  American  idea  into  the  homogeneous  mass  of  the  Amer 
ican  people 


232  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Since  the  Christian  era  all  great  political  movements  have 
had  their  impulse  in  religious  sentiment.  The  national  exist 
ence  of  the  Jews  has  been  preserved  for  two  thousand  years 
by  the  hope  of  a  Messiah.  The  destiny  of  Europe,  Asia,  and 
Africa  has  been  modified  by  the  doctrines  of  Mohammed.  The 
dogmas  of  Luther  and  Calvin  gave  the  Commonwealth  to 
England  and  the  Puritan  to  America,  and  resulted  for  the  first 
time  in  history  in  the  adoption  of  the  Golden  Rule  as  a  maxim 
of  government,  and  of  the  Bible  as  the  chief  corner-stone  of 
the  civil  state. 

As  the  Nation  grew,  two  conflicting  theories  of  the  nature 
and  objects  of  our  political  system  gradually  developed  into 
increasing  activity  and  contended  for  the  mastery.  Prudential 
considerations,  the  ambition  of  party  leaders,  the  cowardice  of 
emasculated  statesmen,  the  cupidity  of  pusillanimous  traders, 
deferred  the  crisis  by  compromises,  patches,  and  plasters  till 
the  inevitable  issue,  long  deferred,  was  precipitated  upon  the 
plains  of  Kansas,  and  that  mortal  duel  began  whose  bloody 
deluge  submerged  half  the  continent  beneath  its  crimson 
inundation. 

Among  those  who  signed  the  covenant  in  the  cabin  of  the 
Mayflower  was  Peter  Brown,  an  English  carpenter,  who  died 
in  1633.  Descended  from  him  in  the  sixth  generation  was 
John  Brown,  born  at  Torrington,  Connecticut,  on  the  9th  of 
May,  1800.  When  five  years  of  age,  he  was  taken  to  Ohio. 
His  youth  was  obscure  and  uneventful.  He  was  a  shepherd,  a 
farmer,  a  tanner.  At  the  age  of  eighteen  he  went  to  Massa 
chusetts  with  the  design  of  obtaining  a  collegiate  education 
and  entering  the  ministry,  but  was  attacked  with  a  disorder 
of  the  eyes,  which  compelled  him  to  abandon  this  purpose  and 
return  to  Ohio.  In  early  manhood  he  was  a  surveyor,  and 


ADDRESS.  233 

traversed  the  forests  of  Pennsylvania  and  Virginia.  Later  he 
was  engaged  in  business  for  ten  years  in  Pennsylvania,  and 
afterwards  in  Ohio,  as  a  tanner,  as  a  cattle  dealer,  and  specu- 
ulator  in  real  estate,  till  1 846,  when  he  removed  with  his  family 
to  Springfield,  Massachusetts,  and  deL-lt  in  wool  as  a  commis 
sion  merchant.  In  1849  he  went  to  North  Elba,  New  York, 
where  he  lived  upon  a  sterile  rocky  farm  among  the  Adiron- 
dacks,  and  where  his  body  now  lies  mouldering  in  the  grave. 

In  1854  f°ur  sons  °f  John  Brown  joined  the  column  of  emi 
grants  that  marched  to  Kansas.  They  settled  near  Pottawato- 
mie  Creek,  about  eight  miles  from  the  spot  where  we  now  stand, 
and  became  apostles  of  the  Puritan  idea  and  missionaries  of 
freedom.  They  were  unarmed,  but  believed  the  State  should 
be  free.  They  were  harassed,  insulted,  raided,  and  plundered 
by  gangs  of  marauders,  and  at  length  wrote  to  their  father  to 
procure  arms  to  enable  them  to  protect  their  lives  and  property, 
and  to  bring  them  personally  to  Kansas. 

The  hour  had  struck.  The  long  humble  life  of  meditation 
was  about  to  flower  into  immortal  deeds.  In  the  autumn  of 
1855,  during  the  siege  of  Lawrence,  the  old  man,  with  his  four 
sons,  appeared  upon  the  field  equipped  for  battle.  A  specta 
tor  says : 

"They  drove  up  in  front  of  the  Free  State  Hotel,  standing  in  a  small 
lumber  wagon.  To  each  of  their  persons  was  strapped  a  short,  heavy 
broadsword.  Each  was  supplied  with  a  goodly  number  of  fire-arms  and 
revolvers,  and  poles  were  standing  endwise  around  the  wagon-box,  with 
fixed  bayonets  pointing  upwards.  They  looked  really  formidable,  and 
were  received  with  great  eclat." 

But  it  soon  became  apparent  that  he  was  too  sincere,  too 
much  in  earnest,  to  be  available.  He  refused  to  do  anything 
but  fight.  His  criticisms  upon  the  political  leaders  were  caus 
tic  and  intolerable.  He  would  do  nothing  because  it  was  expe- 


234  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

dient,  but  everything  because  it  was  right.  He  had  no  sym 
pathy  with  those  who  wanted  to  make  Kansas  a  free  white 
State.  He  asserted  the  manhood  of  the  negro  with  a  vehe 
mence  that  agitated  the  political  eunuchs  of  the  period  who 
were  more  anxious  for  place  than  for  principle. 

On  the  4th  of  July,  1856,  it  seemed  as  if  the  subjugation  of 
Kansas  by  the  slave  power  was  accomplished.  The  Missouri 
River,  the  great  avenue  of  access  to  the  Territory,  was  closed. 
Governor  Shannon  said,  "The  roads  were  literally  strewed  with 
dead  bodies."  The  Free  State  citizens  of  Leavenworth  were 
exiles ;  the  principal  towns  of  the  Territory  were  in  the  hands 
of  the  enemy;  and  on  this  natal  day  of  the  Republic,  at  the 
command  of  a  servile  President,  the  Legislature  was  dispersed 
by  United  States  troops,  without  a  protest  from  that  party 
which  has  recently  stunned  the  public  ear  with  denunciations 
of  Federal  interference  in  Louisiana  and  the  insurgent  States  of 
the  South. 

Encamped  in  the  timber  that  shadowed  the  banks  of  the 
Shunganunga,  ready  to  attack  the  dragoons  of  Colonel  Sum- 
ner  upon  that  fatal  day,  lay  old  John  Brown  and  his  sons. 
Prudent  counsels  dissuaded  him  from  violence,  and  they 
disappeared. 

During  the  eventful  months  that  succeeded  the  spirit  of  lib 
erty  revived.  The  insolent  aggressisons  of  the  invading  Mis- 
sourians  stimulated  the  Free  State  party  to  unexampled  vigor. 
They  assumed  the  offensive  and  a  series  of  skirmishes  ensued, 
in  which  John  Brown  and  his  sons  were  prominent  participants. 
They  were  present  at  the  engagements  at  Franklin,  at  Battle 
Mound,  and  at  Sugar  Creek,  dispersing  the  marauders,  killing 
some,  and  capturing  many  prisoners,  together  with  supplies 
and  munitions  of  war. 


ADDRESS.  235 

On  the  i  yth  of  August  the  Missourians  issued  another  proc 
lamation  calling  upon  the  citizens  of  Lafayette  County  to  meet 
at  Lexington  at  12  o'clock  on  the  2oth  of  that  month,  with 
arms  and  provisisons,  to  march  into  Kansas.  In  response  to 
this  appeal,  a  force  of  two  thousand  men,  from  the  counties  of 
Lafayette,  Jackson,  Johnson,  Platte,  Saline,  Ray,  Carroll,  and 
Clay,  assembled  at  the  village  of  Santa  Fe  and  invaded  the  Ter 
ritory.  This  force  was  divided  into  two  columns;  one,  under 
the  command  of  Senator  Atchison,  marching  to  Bull  Creek, 
and  the  other,  under  General  Reid,  advancing  on  Osawatomie. 
Reid's  command  numbered  nearly  500  men.  They  were  well 
supplied  with  small-arms  and  had  several  pieces  of  artillery. 
John  Brown,  like  Caesar,  could  not  only  plan  campaigns  and 
fight  battles,  but  could  write  their  history.  He  describes  the 
battle  of  Osawatomie  in  the  following  graphic  language : 

"Early  in  the  morning  of  the  3oth  of  August  the  enemy's  scouts 
approached  to  within  one  mile  and  a  half  of  the  western  boundary  of  the 
town  of  Osawatomie.  &t  this  place  my  son  Frederick  K.  (who  was  not 
attached  to  my  force)  had  lodged  with  some  four  other  young  men  from 
Lawrence  and  a  young  man  named  Garrison  from  Middle  Creek. 

"The  scouts,  led  by  a  Pro-slavery  preacher  named  White,  shot  my  son 
dead  in  theVoad,  whilst^he — as  I  have  since  ascertained — supposed  them  to 
be  friendly.  At  the  same  time  they  butchered  Mr.  Garrison,  and  badly  man 
gled  one  of  the  young  men  from  Lawrence,  who  came  with  my  son,  leaving 
him  for  dead. 

"This  was  not  far  from  sunrise.  I  had  stopped  during  the  night  about 
two  and  one-half  miles  from  them,  and  nearly  one  mile  from  Osawatomie. 
I  had  no  organized  force,  but  only  some  twelve  o/  fifteen  new  recruits,  who 
were  ordered  to  leave  their  preparations  for  breakfast  and  follow  me  into 
the  town  as  soon  as  this  news  was  brought  to  me. 

"As  I  had  no  means  of  learning  correctly  the  force  of  the  enemy,  I 
placed  twelve  of  the  recruits  in  a  log  house,  hoping  we  might  be  able  to 
defend  the  town.  I  then  gathered  some  fifteen  more  men  together,  whom 
we  armed  with  guns,  and  we  started  in  the  direction  of  the  enemy.  After 
going  a  few  rods,  we  could  see  them  approaching  the  town  in  line  of  battle, 
about  one-half  mile  off,  upon  a  hill  west  of  the  village.  I  then  gave  up  all 
idea  of  doing  more  than  to  annoy,  from  the  timber  near  the  town  into 


236  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

which  we  were  all  retreated,  and  which  was  filled  with  a  thick  growth  of 
underbrush;  but  had  no  time  to  recall  the  twelve  men  in  the  log  house, 
and  so  lost  their  assistance  in  the  fight. 

"At  the  point  above  named  I  met  with  Captain  Cline,  a  very  active 
young  man,  who  had  with  him  some  twelve  or  fifteen  mounted  men,  and 
persuaded  him  to  go  with  us  into  the  timber,  on  the  southern  shore  of  the 
Osage,  or  Marais  des  Cygnes,  a  little  to  the  northwest  from  the  village. 
Here  the  men,  numbering  no  more  than  thirty  in  all,  were  directed  to  scatter 
and  secrete  themselves  as  well  as  they  could,  and  await  the  approach  of 
the  enemy.  This  was  done  in  full  view  of  them  (who  must  have  seen  the 
whole  movement),  and  had  to  be  done  in  the  utmost  haste.  I  believe 
Captain  Cline  and  some  of  his  men  were  not  even  dismounted  in  the  fight, 
but  cannot  assert  positively.  When  the  left  wing  of  the  enemy  had 
approached  to  within  common  rifle-shot,  we  commenced  firing,  and  very 
soon  threw  the  northern  branch  of  the  enemy's  line  into  disorder.  This 
continued  some  fifteen  or  twenty  minutes,  which  gave  us  an  uncommon 
opportunity  to  annoy  them.  Captain  Cline  and  his  men  soon  got  out  of 
ammunition,  and  retired  across  the  river. 

"After  the  enemy  rallied,  we  kept  up  our  fire,  until,  by  the  leaving  of 
one  and  another,  we  had  but  six  or  seven  left.  We  then  retired  across  the 
river. 

"We  had  one  man  killed — a  Mr.  Powers,  from  Captain  Cline's  company 
— in  the  night.  One  of  my  men — a  Mr.  Partridge — was  shot  in  crossing  the 
river.  Two  or  three  of  the  party,  who  took  part  in  the  fight,  are  yet  miss 
ing,  and  may  be  lost  or  taken  prisoners.  Two  were  wounded,  viz. :  Dr. 
Updegraff  and  a  Mr.  Collis. 

"I  cannot  speak  in  too  high  terms  of  them,  and  of  many  others  I  have 
not  now  time  to  mention. 

"One  of  my  best  men,  together  with  myself,  was  struck  with  a  partially 
spent  ball  from  the  enemy,  in  the  commencement  of  the  fight,  but  we  were 
only  bruised.  The  loss  I  refer  to  is  one  of  my  missing  men.  The  loss  of 
the  enemy,  as  we  learn  by  the  different  statements  of  our  own  as  well  as 
their  people,  was  some  thirty-one  or  two  killed  and  from  forty  to  fifty 
wounded.  After  burning  the  town  to  ashes  and  killing  a  Mr.  Williams 
they  had  taken,  whom  neither  party  claimed,  they  took  a  hasty  leave, 
carrying  their  dead  and  wounded  with  them.  They  did  not  attempt  to  cross 
the  river  nor  to  search  for  us,  and  have  not  since  returned  to  look  over 
their  work. 

"I  give  this  in  great  haste,  in  the  midst  of  constant  interruptions 
My  second  son  was  with  me  in  the  fight,  and  escaped  unharmed. 
This  I  mention  for  the  benefit  of  his  friends. 

"Old  preacher  White,  I  hear,  boasts  of  having  killed  my  son.  Of 
course  he  is  a  lion.  JOHN  BROWN." 


ADDRESS.  237 

The  battle  of  Osawatomie  was  the  most  brilliant  and  im 
portant  episode  in  the  Kansas  war.  It  was  the  high  divide 
of  the  contest.  Its  importance  cannot  be  exaggerated.  It 
was  our  Thermopylae,  and  John  Brown  was  our  Leonidas  with 
his  Spartan  band.  Thenceforward  there  was  no  sneer  that  the 
Abolitionists  dared  not  fight.  It  was  evident  that  somebody 
was  in  earnest.  The  numbers  engaged  were  comparatively 
insignificant.  No  sonorous  bulletins  announced  the  result. 
There  was  little  of  the  pride  and  pomp  and  circumstance  of 
war.  There  were  no  nodding  plumes,  no  haughty  banners,  no 
stirring  blasts  from  the  bugle  calling  the  warriors  to  arms. 
But  when  Freedom  recounts  the  sacrifices  of  her  sons,  she  does 
not  ask  the  number  or  rank  of  those  who  fell.  Winkelried  is 
as  dear  to  her  as  Washington,  and  Osawatomie  is  as  sacred  as 
Bannockburn  or  Bunker  Hill.  At  her  behest  to-day  we  reclaim 
from  common  dust  the  sacred  ashes  of  the  martyrs  of  Osawat 
omie.  The  sunshine  of  innumerable  summers  shall  smile  upon 
this  consecrated  sward.  The  hearts  of  the  generations  that 
follow  us  shall  swell  at  the  contemplation  of  their  heroic  self- 
devotion  and  guard  with  jealous  care  this  sacred  sepulchre. 

"Nor  shall  their  glory  be  forgot 

While  Fame  her  record  keeps, 
Or  Honor  points  the  hallowed  spot 

Where  Valor  proudly  sleeps. 
Nor  wreck,  nor  change,  nor  Winter's  blight, 

Nor  Time's  remorseless  doom, 
Can  dim  one  ray  of  holy  light 

That  gilds  their  glorious  tomb." 

After  the  battle  of  Osawatomie,  John  Brown  spent  some 
time  in  travelling  through  the  Territory,  and  about  the  middle 
of  September  was  in  Topeka.  On  his  return  home  he  stopped 
at  Lawrence  for  the  Sabbath.  During  the  day  messengers 


238  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

arrived  from  the  south  with  the  intelligence  that  Reid  and 
Atchison  with  twenty-seven  hundred  men  were  approaching 
to  destroy  the  city,  which  was  unprotected  by  any  organized 
force.  The  regiments  which  had  previously  been  quartered 
there  had  been  scattered  in  different  localities,  leaving  not 
more  than  three  hundred  men  in  Lawrence  fit  for  military 
duty.  Early  in  the  morning  the  flag  on  Blue  Mound,  eight 
miles  to  the  southeast,  was  displayed  at  half-mast  as  a  pre 
concerted  signal  of  great  danger  in  that  direction.  Soon  the 
ascending  smoke  of  the  burning  dwellings  at  Franklin  confirmed 
the  apprehensions  of  the  people.  As  soon  as  it  was  known 
that  Captain  Brown  was  in  the  city,  he  was  unanimously 
chosen  commander-in-chief.  He  immediately  commenced  his 
preparations  for  defense;  manned  the  fortifications,  and  fur 
nished  every  man  who  was  destitute  of  a  bayonet  with  a 
pitchfork  as  a  substitute.  Firing  began  about  dusk  and  soon 
became  general.  A  brass  field-piece  was  brought  to  the  front, 
but  before  it  could  be  discharged,  panic  pervaded  the  ranks  of 
pirates  and  they  precipitately  fled. 

A  very  interesting  letter  from  a  correspondent  who  was 

present  on  that  day  says: 

"When  late  in  the  afternoon  the  Pro-slavery  forces  came  marching  in 
plain  view,  Brown  made  his  appearance  among  the  men,  went  from  point 
to  point  where  they  were  posted  and  gave  them  advice,  prefacing  what  he 
said  by  very  modestly  remarking  that  he  only  spoke  as  a  private  person 
having  no  command,  but  as  one  having  had  some  experience  which  might 
warrant  him  in  giving  some  advice  on  such  an  occasion.  The  effect  of  his 
advice  was  magical.  It  inspired  all  with  courage  and  complete  confidence. 
The  spirited  show  of  resistance  checked  the  approach  of  the  enemy  and 
saved  the  town.  I  always  thought  the  result  was  wholly  attributable  to 
the  unassuming  advice  of 'John  Brown." 

Soon  after  the  retreat  of  the  Missourians  from  Lawrence, 
John  Brown  went  East.  He  lay  ill  in  Iowa  for  several  weeks, 


ADDRESS.  239 

but  reached  Chicago  in  November,  and  early  in  1857  arrived 
in  Boston,  where  he  endeavored  to  persuade  the  Legislature  of 
Massachusetts  to  appropriate  ten  thousand  dollars  for  the  pro 
tection  of  Northern  men  in  Kansas.  He  did  not  return  till 
late  in  the  year,  having  been  unable  to  secure — as  he  pathet 
ically  said  in  his  farewell  "to  the  Plymouth  Rocks,  Bunker 
Hill  Monuments,  Charter  Oaks,  and  Uncle  Tom's  Cabins"— 
"amid  all  the  wealth,  luxury,  and  extravagance  of  this  heaven- 
exalted  people,  even  the  necessary  supplies  of  the  common 
soldier."  For  several  months  he  remained  in  the  Territory, 
organizing  his  forces  for  the  final  crusade  against  slavery,  in 
accordance  with  plans  long  entertained,  and  subsequently 
embodied  in  the  Provisional  Constitution  framed  at  Chatham, 
Canada  West,  in  May,  1858.  The  news  of  the  brutal  massacre 
of  the  Marais  des  Cygnes  recalled  him  again  to  Kansas.  Expect 
ing  a  renewal  of  strife,  he  built  fortifications  on  the  Little 
Osage  and  Little  Sugar  Creeks,  and  prepared  for  war.  Having 
remained  so  long  on  the  defensive,  he  determined  to  invade 
Missouri,  and  thus  stop  the  forays  upon  which  the  supporters 
of  slavery  had  so  long  depended  for  help.  In  January,  1859, 
he  wrote  a  letter  regarding  his  operations  in  Missouri,  which 
has  become  celebrated  as  "John  Brown's  Parallels."  He  says: 

"TRADING  POST,  KANS.,  January,  1859. 

'Gentlemen:  You  will  greatly  oblige  a  humble  friend  by  allowing  the 
use  of  your  columns  while  I  briefly  state  two  parallels  in  my  poor  way. 

"Not  one  year  ago,  eleven  quiet  citizens  of  this  neighborhood,  viz.: 
William  Robinson,  William  Colpetzer,  Amos  Hall,  Austin  Hall,  John 
Campbell,  Asa  Snyder,  Thomas  Stilwell,  William  Hairgrove,  Asa  Hair- 
grove,  Patrick  Ross  and  B .  L.  Reed,  were  gathered  up  from  their  work  and 
their  homes  by  an  armed  force  under  one  Hamilton,  and  without  trial  or 
opportunity  to  speak  in  their  own  defense,  were  formed  into  line  and  all 
but  one  shot — five  killed  and  five  wounded.  One  fell  unharmed,  pretend 
ing  to  be  dead.  All  were  left  for  dead.  The  only  crime  charged  against 
them  was  that  of  being  Free  State  men.  Now,  I  inquire,  what  action  has 


240  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ever,  since  the  occurrence  in  May  last,  been  taken  by  either  the  President 
of  the  United  States,  the  Governor  of  Missouri,  the  Governor  of  Kansas, 
or  any  of  their  tools,  or  by  any  Pro-slavery  or  Administration  man,  to  fer 
ret  out  and  punish  the  perpetrators  of  this  crime? 

"Now  for  the  other  parallel:  On  Sunday,  December  19,  a  negro  man 
called  Jim  came  over  to  the  Osage  settlement  from  Missouri,  and  stated 
that  he,  together  with  his  wife,  two  children,  and  another  negro  man,  was 
to  be  sold  within  a  day  or  two,  and  begged  for  help  to  get  away.  On  Mon 
day  (the  following)  night  two  small  companies  were  made  up  to  go  to  Mis 
souri  and  forcibly  liberate  the  five  slaves,  together  with  other  slaves.  One 
of  these  companies  I  assumed  to  direct.  We  proceeded  to  the  place,  sur 
rounded  the  buildings,  liberated  the  slaves,  and  also  took  certain  property 
supposed  to  belong  to  the  estate. 

"We,  however,  learned  before  leaving  that  a  portion  of  the  articles  we 
had  taken  belonged  to  a  man  living  on  the  plantation  as  a  tenant,  and  who 
was  supposed  to  have  no  interest  in  the  estate.  We  promptly  returned 
to  him  all  we  had  taken.  We  then  went  to  another  plantation,  where  we 
found  five  more  slaves,  took  some  property  and  two  white  men.  We 
moved  all  slowly  away  into  the  Territory  for  some  distance,  and  then  sent 
the  white  men  back,  telling  them  to  follow  us  as  soon  as  they  chose  to  do  so. 
The  other  company  freed  one  female  slave,  took  some  property,  and,  as  I 
am  informed,  killed  one  white  man,  the  master,  who  fought  against  the 
liberation. 

"Now  for  a  comparison :  Eleven  persons  are  forcibly  restored  to  their 
natural  and  inalienable  rights,  with  but  one  man  killed,  and  'all  hell  is 
stirred  from  beneath.'  It  is  currently  reported  that  the  Governor  of  Mis 
souri  has  made  a  requisition  upon  the  Govenor  of  Kansas  for  the  delivery 
of  all  such  as  were  concerned  in  the  last  named  'dreadful  outrage.'  The 
Marshal  of  Kansas  is  said  to  be  collecting  a  posse  of  Missouri  (not  Kansas) 
men  at  West  Point  in  Missouri,  a  little  town  about  ten  miles  distant,  '  to 
enforce  the  laws.'  All  Pro-slavery,  Conservative,  Free  State,  and  Dough 
face  men  and  Administration  tools  are  filled  with  holy  horror. 

"Consider  the  two  cases  and  the  action  of  the  Administration  party. 
"Respectfully  yours.  JOHN  BROWN." 

The  result  of  this  raid  was  marvelous.  Bates  and  Vernon 
counties  were  denuded  instantaneously  of  their  slaves.  Some 
were  sold  South,  some  fled  into  the  Territory,  and  others  were 
removed  into  the  interior  of  the  State.  The  Governor  of  Mis 
souri  offered  $3,000  reward  for  the  arrest  of  John  Brown,  which 
the  President  supplemented  by  an  additional  inducement  of 


ADDRESS.  241 

$250,  to  which  Brown  retorted  by  offering  $2.50  for  the  deliv 
ery  of  James  Buchanan  to  him  in  camp.  He  moved  slowly 
northward  with  his  four  families  of  liberated  slaves  along  the 
now  abandoned  line  of  the  "Underground  Railroad,"  reaching 
Holton  in  Jackson  County  late  in  January,  pursued  at  a  safe 
distance  by  a  valorous  squad  of  thirty  heroes  from  Lecompton. 
Not  feeling  competent  to  cope  with  John  Brown  and  his  seven 
companions,  they  sent  to  Atchison  for  reinforcements,  which 
soon  arrived  to  the  number  of  twelve,  making  a  force  of  forty- 
two  men  opposed  to  eight.  They  made  valiant  preparations 
to  attack  the  little  garrison,  but  when  the  old  man  emerged 
from  his  log-cabin  fortress  and  offered  fight,  they  incontinently 
broke  for  the  prairie,  some  who  were  dismounted  seizing  upon 
the  tails  of  the  horses  to  assist  them  in  their  headlong  flight. 
Four  generals  of  the  Atchison  brigade  were  captured,  together 
with  several  horses.  The  captain  detained  his  prisoners  five 
days  in  captivity.  Those  who  came  to  scoff  remained  to  pray. 
He  read  the  Bible  to  them,  and  compelled  them  to  pray 
night  and  morning,  ordering  them  to  their  knees  with  a  cocked 
pistol  in  his  hand.  When  he  was  ready  to  resume  his  march,, 
he  released  them  with  his  benediction,  retaining  their  horses 
and  overcoats  for  his  negroes.  They  walked  forty  miles  across 
the  snowy  prairie  to  Atchison,  and  the  gallant  episode  was 
always  known  as  the  "Battle  of  the  Spurs."  I  have  talked 
with  several  of  the  survivors,  and  they  all  speak  of  John  Brown 
in  the  highest  terms  of  respect,  as  a  brave  and  honest  but  mis 
guided  man.  He  reached  Canada  in  March  following,  colo 
nized  his  emigrants  near  Windsor,  and  returned  to  Kansas  no 
more. 

His  subsequent  career  belongs  to  the  history  of  the  Nation. 
Out  of  the  portentous  and  menacing  cloud  of  anti-slavery  sen- 


242  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

timent  that  had  long  brooded  with  sullen  discontent,  a  baleful 
meteor  above  the  North,  he  sprang  like  a  terrific  thunderbolt, 
whose  lurid  glare  illuminated  the  continent  with  its  devas 
tating  flame,  and  whose  reverberations  among  the  splintered 
crags  of  Harper's  Ferry  were  repeated  on  a  thousand  battle 
fields  from  Gettysburg  to  the  Gulf. 

He  died  as  he  had  lived,  a  Puritan  of  the  Puritans.  There 
was  no  perturbation  in  his  serene  and  steadfast  soul.  I  know 
of  no  productions  in  literature  more  remarkable  than  his  letters 
written  in  prison  while  he  was  under  sentence  of  death. 

The  closing  words  of  Socrates  to  his  friends,  before  he 
drank  the  fatal  hemlock,  were  these: 

"  It  is  now  time  that  we  depart,  I  to  die,  you  to  live;  but  which  has 
the  better  destiny  is  unknown  to  all  except  the  gods." 

The  noblest  pagan  of  antiquity  had  courage,  but  not  faith. 
John  Brown  said: 

"  I  can  trust  God  with  both  the  time  and  manner  of  my  death,  believ 
ing,  as  I  now  do,  that  for  me  at  this  time  to  seal  my  testimony  for  God 
and  humanity  with  my  blood  will  do  vastly  more  toward  advancing  the 
cause  I  have  earnestly  endeavored  to  promote  than  all  I  have  done  in  my 
life  before." 

"  I  cannot  feel  that  God  will  suffer  even  the  poorest  service  we  may 
any  of  us  render  Him  or  His  cause  to  be  lost  or  in  vain." 

"As  I  believe  most  firmly  that  God  reigns,  I  cannot  believe  that  any 
thing  I  have  done,  suffered,  or  may  yet  suffer  will  be  lost  to  the  cause  of 
God  or  humanity,  and  before  I  began  my  work  at  Harper's  Ferry  I  felt 
assured  that  in  the  worst  event  it  would  certainly  pay." 

"Tell  your  father  that  I  am  quite  cheerful;  that  I  do  not  feel  myself 
in  the  least  degraded  by  my  imprisonment,  my  chains,  or  the  near  pros 
pect  of  the  gallows.  Men  cannot  imprison,  chain,  nor  hang  the  soul!" 

41 1  am  endeavoring  to  get  ready  for  another  field  of  action,  where  no 
defeat  befalls  the  truly  brave. " 

"  It  is  a  great  comfort  to  feel  assured  that  I  am  permitted  to  die  for  a 
cause,  and  not  merely  to  pay  the  debt  of  Nature,  which  all  must.  I  feel 
myself  to  be  unworthy  of  so  great  distinction." 

"John  Brown  writes  to  his  children  to  abhor  with  undying  hatred  also 
that  sum  of  all  villainy — slavery." 


ADDRESS.  243 

"I  feel  just  as  content  to  die  for  God's  eternal  truth  and  for  suffering 
humanity  on  the  scaffold  as  in  any  other  way." 

"I  think  I  cannot  now  better  serve  the  cause  I  love  so  much  than  to 
die  for  it,  and  in  my  death,  I  may  do  more  than  in  my  life." 

"I  do  not  believe  I  shall  deny  my  Lord  and  Master  Jesus  Christ,  and 
Fshould  if  I  denied  my  principles  against  slavery." 

What  immortal  and  dauntless  courage  breathes  in  this  pro 
cession  of  stately  sentences;  what  fortitude;  what  patience; 
what  faith ;  what  radiant  and  eternal  hope !    Over  his  soul  hov 
ered  the  covenant  of  peace.     He  felt  the  lofty  consciousness  of 
"Deeds  that  are  royal  in  a  land  beyond  kings'  sceptres." 

He  trod  the  scaffold  with  the  step  of  a  conqueror,  and  the 
man  whom  Virginia  executed  as  a  felon  Kansas  to-day  canon 
izes  as  a  martyr. 

Nothing  is  more  difficult  to  analyze  and  detect  than  the 
secret  of  any  man's  power  and  influence  upon  his  associates, 
his  generation,  and  the  ultimate  destinies  of  mankind.  Who 
can  tell  why  the  obscure  Lincoln  became  the  great  leader  of 
Northern  sentiment  instead  of  Seward  or  Chase,  who  had  long 
been  the  prominent  advocates  of  Republican  ideas?  Or  why 
Grant  led  the  loyal  millions  to  victory  instead  of  his  predeces 
sors,  whose  attainments  and  experience  seemed  equally  quali 
fied  to  insure  success?  We  cannot  find  the  meat  on  which  our 
Caesars  feed.  The  men  who  succeed  greatly  are  not  those  of 
whom  success  could  be  predicted.  After  we  have  weighed  and 
measured  a  man,  learned  all  his  habits,  his  attainments,  his 
capacities  for  speech,  pleasure,  business,  accumulation,  there 
is  something  in  him  that  eludes  our  strictest  scrutiny;  that 
indefinable  attribute  which  makes  him  what  he  is  and  dis 
tinguishes  him  from  all  his  kind.  It  is  sometimes  said  that 
circumstances  make  men,  but  the  reverse  is  true:  men  make 
their  circumstances.  Opportunity  occurs  to  all,  but  only  one 


244  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

seizes  it.  Some  say  that  luck  or  chance  favored  the  man  who 
wins,  but  in  the  domain  of  law  there  are  no  accidents.  Every 
man  ultimately  goes  to  his  own  place. 

In  attempting  to  estimate  and  comprehend  the  influence 
which  John  Brown  exerted  upon  this  age,  we  are  perplexed  by 
much  that  is  anomalous  and  inexplicable.  Many  of  his  con 
temporaries,  even  those  who  sympathized  with  him  in  opinion, 
regarded  him  as  a  fanatic  and  madman — crazed  by  the  death 
of  his  sons,  and  inspired  by  the  fury  of  revenge.  Emerson 
says  the  dreams  of  yesterday  are  to-day  the  deliberate  conclu 
sions  of  public  opinion,  and  to-morrow  the  charter  of  nations. 
The  Abolitionists  of  twenty  years  ago  invented  many  schemes 
of  emancipation.  Some  wanted  to  deport  and  colonize  the 
negroes  in  Africa  or  the  West  India  Islands;  others  thought 
the  Nation  should  buy  them  of  their  owners  and  gradually  ele 
vate  them  to  citizenship;  but  John  Brown's  plan,  as  developed 
in  the  Chatham  Constitution,  was  to  free  them  in  the  South 
and  keep  them  there.  The  impracticable  visionary  schemer 
was  wiser  than  the  statesmen  who  derided  him.  The  dream 
of  1858  was  the  accomplished  fact  of  1863.  The  theories  of 
the  enthusiast  have  been  imbedded  in  the  organic  law  of  the 
Nation.  He  builded  better  than  he  knew. 

The  defects  and  infirmities  of  his  nature  rendered  bim  more 
powerful  in  council  and  more  formidable  in  action,  because  his 
few  and  narrow  convictions  irresistibly  implied  him  without 
interruption  in  the  inevitable  direction  of  their  accomplish 
ment.  There  was  no  difTusion  in  his  career.  He  was  not  dis 
tracted  by  ambition,  the  love  of  wealth,  the  desire  for  ease 
and  luxury,  the  attractions  of  books  or  art.  He  was  cast  in  the 
rigid  mold  of  the  Pilgrims,  from  whom  he  descended.  His  soul 
was  not  decorated  nor  embellished,  but  was  as  severe  as  the 


ADDRESS.  245 

gaunt,  grim,  gray  tenement  which  it  inhabited.  He  was  not 
hampered  by  personal  necessities.  His  wants  were  few;  his 
habits  frugal  and  unostentatious,  so  that  he  moved  without 
impediments. 

In  any  age  or  country,  or  under  any  system  where  abuses 
existed  that  needed  correction,  he  would  have  been  a  reformer 
in  politics  and  a  Puritan  in  religion.  He  would  have  gone 
with  John  Huss  to  the  stake  or  with  vSir  Thomas  More  to  the 
scaffold. 

The  convictions  upon  which  he  acted  were  not  hasty,  sud 
den,  and  transient,  but  deliberate  and  inflexible.  He  never 
hesitated.  Delay  did  not  baffle  nor  disconcert  him,  nor  dis 
comfiture  render  him  despondent.  His  tenacity  of  purpose 
was  inexorable,  and  seemed  like  an  exterior  power,  rather  than 
an  impulse  from  within.  As  early  as  1839,  twenty  years  before 
his  martyrdom,  he  formed  the  purpose  which  he  never  relin 
quished.  Thenceforward  every  hour  was  devoted  to  meas 
ures  for  the  destruction  of  slavery,  either  by  action,  by  conversa 
tion,  or  by  reflection.  Those  relations  and  possessions  and 
pursuits  which  to  most  men  are  the  chief  objects  of  existence, 
home,  friends,  fortune,  estate,  power,  to  him  were  the  most 
insignificant  incidents.  He  regarded  them  as  trivial,  unim 
portant,  and  wholly  subsidiary  to  the  accomplishment  of  the 
great  mission  for  which  he  had  been  sent  upon  this  globe. 
His  love  of  justice  was  an  irresistible  passion,  and  slavery  the 
accident  that  summoned  all  his  powers  into  dauntless  and 
strenuous  activity. 

He  believed  there  was  no  acquisition  so  splendid  as  moral 
purity;  no  possession  nor  inheritance  so  desirable  as  personal 
liberty ;  nothing  on  this  earth  nor  in  the  world  to  come  so  valu 
able  as  the  soul,  whatever  be  the  hue  of  its  bodily  habitation ; 


246  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

no  impulse  so  lofty  and  heroic  as  an  unconquerable  purpose  to 
love  truth,  and  an  invincible  determination  to  obey  God. 

It  is  a  prodigious  task,  Mr.  President,  to  lift  a  man,  a  com 
munity,  a  race  out  of  barbarism  into  civilization.  Nor  is  the 
labor  less  difficult  to  keep  them  on  the  plane  to  which  they 
have  been  elevated.  The  disposition  is  to  relapse.  The  ten 
dency  is  downward.  Stop  the  machinery  of  courts,  schools, 
and  churches  for  a  single  generation,  and  society  would  crumble 
into  ruin.  It  requires  an  active  coalition  of  all  the  conserv 
ative  elements  in  every  age  to  prevent  destructive  organic 
changes;  to  preserve  life,  libeity,  and  property  against  the 
assaults  of  the  indolent  and  vicious.  If  this  is  true  of  the  material 
interests  of  mankind,  where  so  many  selfish  inducements  con 
spire  to  stimulate  to  the  highest  efforts,  how  much  more  ardu 
ous  the  endeavor  to  elevate  a  nation  to  a  higher  moral  grade 
at  the  sacrifice  of  many  acquisitions  that  are  deemed  desirable ! 

And  yet  no  one  can  doubt  that  the  general  progress  of  the 
human  race,  morally,  intellectually,  and  physically,  has  been 
upward.  Through  the  long  desolate  track  of  history,  through 
all  the  seemingly  aimless  struggles  and  random  gropings,  amid 
the  turbulent  chaos  of  wrong,  injustice,  crime,  agony,  disease, 
want,  and  wretchedness,  the  trepidation  of  the  oppressed,  the 
bloody  exultations  and  triumphs  of  tyrants,  the  tendency  has 
been  toward  the  light.  Out  of  every  conflict  some  man,  or 
sect,  or  nation  has  emerged  with  more  privileges,  enlarged 
opportunities,  broader  liberty,  greater  capacity  for  happiness. 

I  believe  it  is  Carlyle  who  says  that  when  any  great  change 
in  human  society  or  institutions  is  to  be  wrought,  God  raises  up 
men  to  whom  that  change  is  made  to  appear  as  the  one  thing 
needful  and  absolutely  indispensable.  Scholars,  orators,  poets, 
philanthropists,  play  their  parts;  but  the  crisis  comes  through 


ADDRESS.  247 

some  one  whom  the  world  regards  as  a  fanatic  or  impostor,  and 
whom  the  supporters  of  the  system  he  assails  crucify  between 
thieves  or  gibbet  as  a  felon. 

It  required  generations  to  arouse  the  conscience  of  the 
American  people  to  the  enormous  iniquity  of  African  slavery. 
They  admitted  it  was  wrong;  but  they  were  politicians,  and 
wanted  office;  they  were  merchants,  and  wanted  tranquillity; 
they  were  manufacturers,  and  wanted  cotton ;  they  were  labor 
ers,  and  wanted  bread;  they  were  capitalists,  and  wanted  peace. 
Had  the  abolition  of  slavery  depended  alone  upon  the  efforts 
of  Sumner,  Chase,  Seward,  Phillips,  and  their  associates,  we 
should  still  be  engaged  in  a  windy  war  of  wordy  debate.  It 
does  not  require  much  courage  to  talk  against  a  wrong,  nor  does 
it  hurt  the  wrong  much  to  be  talked  against.  Rhetoric  is 
cheap.  Mere  abstract  truth  harms  nobody.  It  is  easy  to  be 
radical  in  a  great  office  upon  a  liberal  salary,  and  with  a  com 
fortable  majority  upon  which  to  recline.  The  classical  ora 
tors,  the  scholarly  declaimers  and  essayists,  performed  their 
work.  They  furnished  the  formulas  for  popular  use  and  ex 
pression  ;  but  old  John  Brown,  with  his  pikes,  did  more  in  one 
brief  hour  to  render  slavery  impossible  than  all  the  speech- 
makers  and  soothsayers  had  done  in  a  quarter  of  a  century, 
and  he  will  be  remembered  when  they  and  their  works  are  lost 
in  dusty  oblivion.  The  man  who  is  not  afraid  to  die  for  an 
idea  is  its  most  convincing  advocate. 

Already  those  who  were  considered  as  the  great  intellectual 
leaders  of  opinion  in  this  crusade  are  dead.  I  was  presiding 
over  the  Senate  when  Sumner  left  the  chamber  for  the  last  time 
in  life,  and  I  saw  his  remains  borne  from  the  Capitol,  which  had 
been  the  scene  of  his  labors  for  nearly  a  quarter  of  a  century. 
I  was  with  Vice-President  Wilson  the  day  before  he  died,  and 


248  JOHN  JAMES  INGAU.S. 

witnessed  the  unparalleled  display  that  attended  the  funeral 
cortege  as  it  moved  through  New  York  City  on  its  way  to  his 
last  resting-place  in  Massachusetts.  I  witnessed  the  adminis 
tration  of  the  second  oath  of  office  to  President  Grant  by  Chief 
Justice  Chase,  then  a  broken  and  disconsolate  old  man  just 
lingering  on  the  verge  of  dissolution.  They  are  almost  forgot 
ten.  Their  names  are  no  longer  on  the  tongues  of  men.  Their 
speeches  have  died  out  of  popular  remembrance.  Seward  yet 
lives  by  a  fortunate  phrase,  "the  irrepressible  conflict,"  which 
was  not  his  own  except  as  an  adopted  foundling. 

The  student  of  the  future  will  exhume  their  orations  and 
arguments  and  state  papers  as  a  part  of  the  subterranean  his 
tory  of  the  epoch.  The  antiquarian  will  dig  up  their  remains 
from  the  alluvial  drift  of  the  period  and  construe  their  relations 
to  the  great  events  in  which  they  were  actors;  but  the  three 
men  who  will  loom  forever  against  the  horizon  of  time  as  the 
representative,  conspicuous  types  of  this  era,  like  pyramids 
above  the  desert,  or  mountain  peaks  over  the  subordinate 
plains,  are  Abraham  Lincoln,  U.  S.  Grant,  and  old  John  Brown 
of  Osawatomie,  and  I  am  not  sure  that  the  last  will  not  be  first. 
He  has  a  prodigious  grip  upon  the  public  imagination.  His 
example  is  bedded  deep  in  the  general  conscience.  There  are 
more  men  in  America  to-day  who  can  sing  the  John  Brown 
song  than  any  other  hymn,  unless  it  may  be  the  long-meter 
"Old  Hundred"  Doxology.  It  is  an  immortal  strain,  and  stirs 
the  soul  like  the  solemn  diapason  of  an  organ  in  the  fretted 
vaults  of  a  cathedral. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  war  I  spent  an  autumn  night  in  the 
camp  of  one  of  the  most  famous  Kansas  regiments.  The  tents 
were  pitched  upon  the  eastern  slope  of  a  grassy  declivity  that 
descended  to  the  wooded  margin  of  a  slender  stream,  whose 


ADDRESS.  249 

meanderings  were  marked  by  an  exhalation  of  blue  haze  that 
extended  from  horizon  to  horizon.  The  pensive  splendor  of 
a  full  moon  illuminated  the  alien  landscape  with  its  melancholy 
glory  as  we  sat  around  the  glimmering  embers  and  talked  of  the 
great  problems  of  the  tremendous  conflict  upon  which  we  had 
entered.  The  murmurs  of  the  camp  had  become  almost  inar 
ticulate  as  night  deepened,  when  suddenly  a  single  distant 
voice  broke  upon  the  stillness  with  the  inspiring  words  of  that 
sublime  martial  psalm,  "John  Brown's  body  lies  a-mouldering 
in  the  grave!"  A  hundred  voices  spontaneously  swelled  the 
repetition  of  the  refrain,  and  when  the  chorus  was  reached,  it 
ascended  in  a  vast  volume  of  reverential  exultation  to  heaven, 
solemn  as  death,  grand  with  its  majestic  suggestions  of  immor 
tality.  It  was  a  revelation  and  a  prophecy,  and  I  felt  that  a 
people  which  could  adopt  such  an  anthem  as  this  for  their  war- 
song  must  march  to  victory. 

During  the  past  few  years  it  has  been  my  fortune  to  oft 
en  travel  through  Maryland  and  Virginia,  and  I  have  never 
approached  Harper's  Ferry  by  day  or  night  when  old  John 
Brown  did  not  become  the  universal  topic  of  conversation,  and 
the  bridge,  the  engine-house,  and  the  ruined  arsenal  the  objects 
of  the  most  eager  interest  and  scrutiny.  Everyone  feels  that 
it  is  historic  ground,  and  that  here  was  struck  the  first  deadly, 
earnest  blow  at  African  slavery.  From  the  moment  that  shot 
was  fired,  talk,  discussion,  debate,  were  at  an  end.  He  who 
was  not  for  slavery  was  against  it.  Gristle  was  replaced  by 
bone.  The  North  became  vertebrated.  The  age  of  compro 
mise  and  cartilage  was  over.  Sentiments  and  emotions  crys 
tallized  suddenly  into  stern  convictions.  Fear  and  rage  fell 
upon  the  South,  and  from  the  Potomac  to  the  Gulf 


250  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

"The  universal  host  up  sent 
A  shout  that  tore  Hell's  concave,  and  beyond 
Frighted  the  reign  of  Chaos  and  old  Night." 

Seven  years  ago  the  mission  of  John  Brown  seemed  to  have 
been  fullly  accomplished.  The  Declaration  of  Independence 
was  no  longer  a  lie.  Slavery  was  destroyed,  and  its  further 
existence  inhibited  by  constitutional  enactment.  The  freed- 
men  by  their  sobriety,  their  obedience  to  law,  their  decorous 
demeanor,  justified  the  temerity  those  who  had  dared  to  main 
tain  that  they  possessed  intelligence  superior  to  beasts,  and 
souls  that  were  immortal.  During  centuries  of  brutal  and 
degrading  bondage,  they  had  retained  the  typical  character 
istics  of  their  race.  Their  virtues  were  their  own;  their  vices 
were  the  offspring  of  the  cruel  system  of  which  they  had  been 
the  reluctant  victims.  Music  and  mirth  enlivened  the  inter 
vals  of  their  unrequited  toil.  Loyalty  and  fidelity  seemed  the 
instincts  of  their  nature.  Patient  of  labor  and  obedient  to  law, 
they  witnessed  the  prodigious  accumulations  derived  from 
their  unpaid  industry  without  an  effort  to  reclaim  their  own. 
Their  local  and  personal  attachments  were  intense.  During 
the  long  moral  combat  that  was  the  vestibule  of  the  war  they 
resisted  the  solicitations  of  those  who  believed  that  he  who 
would  be  free  himself  must  strike  the  blow,  and  continued 
faithful  to  the  tyrants  who  had  enslaved  them.  During  the 
awful  conflict  that  followed,  when  their  emancipation  became 
the  integer,  while  their  owners  were  doing  desperate  battle  to 
rivet  more  firmly  the  fetters  that  bound  them,  they  peacefully 
tilled  the  fields  and  served  the  families  of  their  masters,  wait 
ing  patiently  for  the  hour  of  their  deliverance  to  draw  nigh. 
If  they  pillaged  or  plundered  the  estates  that  were  in  their 
charge,  or  insulted  or  wronged  the  helpless  women  and  children 


ADDRESS.  251 

who  were  at  their  mercy,  history  has  failed  to  record  the  deed. 
And  when  at  last  they  emerged  from  the  smoke  and  din  and 
uproar  upon  the  high  plane  of  American  citizenship,  beneath 
the  vindicated  flag  that  is  henceforth  to  be  the  symbol  of  the 
honor  and  the  emblem  of  the  glory  of  their  country,  they 
accepted  the  trusts  and  responsibilities  with  a  tranquil  and 
orderly  dignity  that  has  defeated  the  predictions  and  challenged 
the  wonder  of  mankind. 

They  began  to  acquire  homes  and  property.  They  filled 
savings  banks  with  their  earnings.  They  assumed  definite 
domestic  relations.  They  gathered  about  the  schoolmaster 
and  eagerly  studied  the  alphabet,  the  primer,  the  Bible.  Their 
instincts  were  more  infallible  than  reason.  They  voted  with 
their  friends.  The  sudden  and  violent  transition  was  accom 
panied  by  no  social  disturbance  such  as  might  reasonably  have 
been  anticipated.  It  was  a  terrible  test  of  the  elasticity  of  our 
political  system.  No  such  strain  ever  fell  upon  a  nation  before. 
Had  the  freedmen  been  disorderly  and  defiant,  our  institutions 
could  not  have  survived  the  shock  inflicted  by  the  introduction 
of  this  tremendous  element  of  uneducated  suffrage. 

The  autonomy  of  the  States  had  been  restored.  The  pesti 
lent  heresy  of  State  sovereignty  had  been  recanted,  and  in  its 
place  appeared  the  true  gospel  of  American  nationality.  The 
United  States  were  at  last  a  nation,  and  not  a  mere  aggrega- 
gation  of  detached  and  incoherent  communities.  The  Nation 
existed,  not  at  the  pleasure  of  a  State,  nor  of  a  majority  of  the 
States,  nor  of  all  the  States,  but  by  virtue  of  the  will  of  a 
majority  of  all  the  people. 

Citizenship  was  made  a  national  attribute.  Behind  every 
citizen,  white  or  black,  at  home  or  abroad,  stood  the  Nation,  a 
beneficent,  potential  energy,  pledged  to  protect  him  in  the  full, 


252  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

free,  and  quiet  enjoyment  and  exercise  of  all  the  rights  of  citi 
zenship.  No  man  could  be  so  humble,  so  obscure,  so  remote 
as  to  become  an  alien  from  its  blessings.  If  his  rights  under 
the  Constitution  were  infringed  or  abridged,  and  redress  was 
refused  by  the  local  authorities,  he  could  confidently  apply  to 
the  Nation  for  restitution. 

The  war  was  really  a  great  convention  to  amend  the  Consti 
tution,  and  the  Thirteenth,  Fourteenth,  and  Fifteenth  Amend 
ments  were  the  result.  The  three  ideas  that  they  embody  are 
universal  freedom,  national  citizenship,  and  the  indissoluble 
union  of  the  States. 

But  all  great  moral  movements  have  their  oscillations. 
They  reach  a  culminating  point  as  a  pendulum  moves  to  the 
end  of  its  arc,  and  then  with  constantly  increasing  velocity 
and  momentum  they  sweep  down  the  curve  on  the  inevitable 
return  from  their  remotest  excursion.  For  the  past  seven 
years  the  path  of  the  Nation  has  been  downward.  If  either  of 
the  Amendments  were  submitted  to  the  States  to-day,  I  do 
not  believe  that  one  of  them  could  receive  the  number  of 
votes  neccessary  for  ratification.  I  doubt  whether  a  State  south 
of  the  Ohio  River  would  vote  for  an  Amendment  declaring 
that  the  union  of  the  States  was  perpetual  and  indissoluble. 
I  have  heard  the  declaration  upon  the  floor  of  both  houses  of 
Congress,  that  the  ratification  of  the  three  Amendments  was 
procured  by  fraud  and  violence,  and  that  they  were  not  oblig 
atory  upon  any  State  that  chose  to  disregard  them.  It  has 
become  unpopular  to  speak  of  disloyalty  and  treason.  The 
scars  and  uniform  of  the  Union  soldier  are  badges  of  dishonor 
and  passports  to  contumely  in  many  of  the  States.  To 
rehearse  their  deeds  and  revere  their  valor  is  denounced  as 
unprofitable  sectionalism.  Our  exercises  to-day  will  be  char- 


ADDRESS.  253 

acterized  as  preaching  the  gospel  of  hate,  fanning  the  embers 
of  strife,  and  reviving  the  dead  issues  of  the  past.  Public 
opinion  has  grown  flabby.  Forgetfulness  is  the  supreme  sug 
gestion  of  statesmanship.  Pacification  is  the  watchword  of 
the  hour.  A  burglar  can  be  pacified  by  delivering  to  him  the 
contents  of  the  bank  vault  and  assuring  him  of  immunity.  A 
murderer  can  be  pacified  by  entering  a  nolle  and  discharging 
him  from  prison.  All  criminals  can  be  pacified  by  relinquish 
ing  to  them  the  fruits  of  their  crime.  Hell  would  be  quiet  if 
the  devil  could  secure  the  abrogation  of  the  Moral  Code  and 
the  absolute  repeal  of  the  Decalogue. 

A  school  of  political  pigmies,  whom  Providence  for  some 
inscrutable  purpose  has  placed  in  power,  are  endeavoring  to 
pacify  the  country  by  debauching  its  convictions;  by  assert 
ing  that  those  who  sought  to  overthrow  and  destroy  the  Gov 
ernment  are  more  entitled  to  its  favors  than  those  who  sacri 
ficed  all  to  uphold  it;  by  attempting  to  obliterate  the  distinc 
tion  between  right  and  wrong  and  to  repeal  the  laws  of  God. 
They  are  seeking  to  put  the  new  wine  of  1877  into  the  old  bot 
tles  of  1860,  with  the  probability  of  the  ultimate  loss  of  both 
receptacles  and  contents. 

Reinforced  by  these  perfidious  allies  under  the  delusive 
banners  of  peace,  harmony,  and  reconciliation,  the  vanquished 
enemies  of  the  Nation  have  been  steadily  and  relentlessly  pur 
suing  their  purposes  to  regain  what  they  lost.  They  have  fal 
sified  every  pledge  by  which  they  secured  their  political  resto 
ration.  They  promised  that  education  should  be  universal, 
but  they  refuse  appropriations  for  the  support  of  schools,  ^burn 
school-houses,  expel  the  teachers,  and  discharge  the A  profes 
sors  in  their  universities  who  believed  in  the  preservation  of 
the  Union.  They  promised  that  suffrage  should  be  protected, 


254  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

freedom  of  speech  and  opinion  maintained;  equal  rights  en 
forced,  and  justice  impartially  administered.  How  these  sol 
emn  covenants  have  been  preserved,  we  know  too  well.  Un 
der  the  sheltering  pretext  of  the  sovereignty  of  the  States, 
atrocious  despotisms  have  been  erected  on  the  ruins  of  liberty. 
Popular  majorities  have  been  suppressed  by  the  most  revolt 
ing  methods  known  to  tyrants.  But  one  political  opinion  is 
tolerated,  and  when  the  organization  that  entertains  opposing 
views  has  been  disbanded  by  carnage  and  terror,  it  is  announced 
that,  the  causes  which  justified  fraud  and  violence  no  longer 
existing,  honest  elections  must  be  restored.  Murder  has  be 
come  one  of  the  political  fine  arts,  and  assassination  a  logical 
argument.  Governors  and  sheriffs  who  conspire  with  mobs 
of  felons  and  protect  them  from  punishment  are  rewarded  by 
renominations  and  recognized  as  leaders  of  the  people;  and 
while  slavery  is  not  restored  by  name,  the  freedmen  are  being 
rapidly  reduced  by  indirect  devices  to  a  condition  of  servile 
dependence  that  has  all  the  horrors  of  slavery  with  none  of  its 
alleviations.  "Home  rule"  means  the  right  to  murder  with 
impunity,  and  "local  self-government"  the  right  of  a  white 
minority  to  suppress  a  black  majority  by  systematic  violence 
and  wholesale  assassination.  And  when  the  beneficent  inter 
vention  of  the  Nation  is  invoked  in  behalf  of  those  whom  it  is 
bound  by  the  most  sacred  obligations  to  protect,  the  appeal  is 
denounced  as  an  invasion  of  the  rights  of  the  States,  because 
the  wrongs  are  not  affirmatively  sanctioned  and  authorized  by 
the  constitutions  and  statutes  of  those  States  where  it  is  admit 
ted  that  they  exist.  The  acts  are  excused  upon  the  ground 
that  they  are  committed  by  young,  misguided,  and  passionate 
citizens,  inflamed  beyond  endurance  by  the  wrongs  of  which 
they  have  been  the  victims.  Speechless  submission  to  these 


ADDRESS.  255 

flagrant  violations  of  the  social  compact  is  called  pacification 
and  harmony.  Tacitus  has  fitly  described  this  condition  in  a 
single  sentence:  " Solitudinem  faciunt  et  pacem  appellant" — - 
"They  make  a  desert  and  call  it  peace." 

In  a  brief  interval  the  forces  which  so  nearly  destroyed  the 
Nation  will  resume  its  absolute  control.  They  now  have  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  in  two  years  they  will  have  the 
Senate  by  decisive  majorities.  Already  the  chieftains  who  led, 
their  legions  with  thundering  menace  aganist  the  Capitol  sit 
beneath  the  shadow  of  its  dome,  and  claim  to  be  the  sole  guard 
ians  of  constitutional  liberty  and  the  consistent  advocates  of 
the  rights  of  the  people.  With  every  vestige  of  opposition 
crushed  and  trampled  out  of  existence  in  half  of  the  States  of 
the  Union,  their  ultimate  success  in  securing  the  Executive 
seems  hardly  to  admit  of  doubt.  Few  vestiges  of  our  great 
conflict  have  been  left,  except  its  scars  and  its  burdens,  and  if 
the  Amendments  are  to  be  made  inoperative,  our  Civil  War  will 
be  justly  stigmatized  as  the  greatest  crime  of  history. 

For  the  lamentable  condition  of  affairs  in  the  South  the 
inexplicable  blunders  of  reconstruction  are  largely  responsible. 
They  turned  society  upside  down.  They  arrayed  the  intelli 
gence,  the  wealth,  the  land,  the  political  skill,  the  traditions  of 
the  South  against  its  numbers,  its  ignorance,  and  its  degrada 
tion,  and  put  the  latter  on  top.  The  struggle  for  supremacy 
was  inevitable,  and  could  have  but  one  issue.  By  means 
wholly  obnoxious  and  detestable,  brains  won.  By  fair  means 
or  foul,  they  generally  do.  The  lessons  of  history  in  this 
connection  are  monotonous,  but  the  statesmen  of  1868  had 
not  read  history,  which  is  said  to  be  philosophy  teaching  by 
example. 


256  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Their  plan  left  but  two  courses  open  for  those  to  whom  they 
bequeathed  the  priceless  legacy  of  their  labors.  The  first  was 
to  prop  up  and  sustain  the  unstable  fabric  which  their  wisdom 
had  erected,  by  the  continuous  application  of  the  national 
power.  The  other  was  to  withdraw  the  Army  and  leave  the 
whole  subject  to  the  local  authorities,  however  inert,  reluctant, 
or  hostile  they  might  be.  In  either  event  a  contest  was  una 
voidable.  Under  the  first  plan,  the  strife  would  be  one  of  arms 
and  force.  Under  the  other,  it  would  be  a  conflict  of  ideas, 
with  the  press,  the  school-book,  and  the  pen  as  the  weapons  of 
the  war. 

The  alternative  has  been  chosen,  and  the  selection  is  irre 
vocable.  There  can  be  no  footsteps  backward.  It  is  idle  to 
quarrel  with  the  inevitable.  What  has  been  done  we  cannot 
undo.  Statesmanship  has  no  concern  with  the  past  except  to 
learn  its  lessons.  Recrimination  and  hostile  criticism  are 
worse  than  useless.  We  must  act  in  the  present  and  go  for 
ward  to  meet  the  future.  However  much  some  may  regret 
what  they  conceive  to  be  a  surrender  of  principles,  an  aban 
donment  of  friends,  a  falsification  of  history,  and  a  confession 
that  a  great  office  is  held  by  successful  fraud,  the  path  of  wis 
dom  is  plain.  We  must  wait  the  result  of  the  experiment. 
We  must  insist  upon  a  rigid  observance  of  the  guaranties  of 
freedom  contained  in  the  Constitution,  and  if  they  are  violated, 
we  must  invoke  that  revolt  of  the  national  conscience  which 
sooner  or  later  is  sure  to  come. 

If  there  are  those  who  believe  that  the  issues  whose  discussion 
upon  peaceful  or  bloody  fields  formed  the  annals  of  our  first  cen, 
tury  are  dead,  I  am  not  one  of  them.  Our  political  history  has 
always  moved  in  periods  defined  by  the  conflict  between  State 
and  national  authority.  The  views  entertained  by  the  rival  par- 


ADDRKSS.  257 

ties  that  arose  when  the  Constitution  was  framed,  and  that  in 
fact  existed  under  the  old  confederation,  are  the  same  views 
that  have  continued  to  exist,  and  which  shall  survive  so  long 
as  our  Government  shall  endure.  Notwithstanding  its  sup 
posed  precision  and  its  subjection  to  judicial  interpretation 
our  Constitution  has  always  been  found  to  possess  sufficient 
latent  powers  to  make  it  progressive  and  adapt  it  to  the  needs 
and  convictions  of  the  Nation.  But  there  is  something  more 
venerable  than  constitutions,  more  sacred  than  charters,  and 
that  is  the  rights  for  whose  protection  they  are  ordained ;  and 
when  the  provisions  of  our  organic  law  ceased  to  express  the 
purposes  of  the  people,  it  was  from  time  to  time  amended,  and 
when  its  capacity  for  amendments  by  peaceful  methods  was 
exhausted,  it  was  amended  by  the  sword. 

But  no  man  is  ever  convinced  by  being  overpowered. 
Force  cannot  extirpate  ideas.  They  are  immortal.  Their 
vitality  is  inextinguishable.  They  cannot  be  annihilated. 
They  may  be  for  a  time  repressed,  but  they  never  die.  War 
does  not  change  the  opinions  of  the  victors  nor  the  vanquished. 
It  proves  nothing,  except  which  combatant  has  the  deepest 
purse  and  the  toughest  muscle.  Had  the  result  of  our  conflict 
been  reversed ;  had  the  Army  of  the  Confederacy  dictated  the 
terms  of  peace  from  the  Capitol ;  had  the  constitutional  theory 
of  Calhoun  been  forced  upon  the  Nation;  had  slavery  been 
made  national,  and  the  Georgia  statesman  fulfilled  his  threat 
to  call  the  roll  of  his  slaves  in  the  shadow  of  Bunker  Hill — I 
should  never  have  believed  that  secession  and  slavery  were 
right,  nor  that  the  patriot  dead  had  died  in  vain ;  nor  should  I 
have  ever  ceased  to  aspire  that  all  men  might  be  free,  and  that 
a  future  day  might  dawn  upon  a  redeemed  and  regenerated 
Republic.  Many  orators  have  declared,  many  papers  have 


258  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

stated,  many  conventions  have  resolved,  that  the  ideas  for 
which  the  South  contended  were  settled  by  the  war ;  but  I  have 
never  heard  the  confession  that  they  were  wrong  or  without 
warrant  in  the  Constitution.  I  should  distrust  the  sincerity 
and  suspect  the  ingenuousness  of  any  intelligent  Confederate 
who  would  say  this. 

It  was  not  to  be  expected  that  the  tremendous  passions 
engendered  by  the  Civil  War,  the  trepidation  of  its  fugitives, 
the  thwarted  ambitions  of  its  leaders,  and  all  the  direful  sequels 
of  the  most  portentous  tragedy  of  time,  should  instantaneously 
be  quieted  and  disappear.  History  teaches  no  such  lesson. 
The  fluctuations  of  the  storm-smitten  sea  do  not  subside  till 
long  after  the  violence  of  the  tempest  is  spent.  But  it  was  not 
unreasonable  to  hope  for  a  manly  and  vigorous  effort  to  assauge 
the  melancholy  passions  of  the  terrible  epoch ;  to  calm  the  exas 
peration  of  the  thoughtless ;  to  educate  the  masses  of  the  people 
to  obedience,  order,  and  peace. 

But  as  the  revolted  States  have  resumed  their  relations  to 
the  Government,  the  old  leaders  of  opinion,  the  chiefs  of  the 
defeated  armies,  have  been  sent  to  both  houses  of  Congress,  and 
the  sole  test  of  political  advancement  is  service  in  the  Confed 
erate  Army.  No  Unionist,  no  conservative,  no  negro,  ever  has 
received  or  ever  will  receive  the  support  of  that  party  which 
has  at  last  secured  "a  solid  South."  To  revert  once  more  to 
the  supposition  that  the  contest  had  resulted  differently  and 
that  the  North  had  been  "reconstructed,"  what  would  have 
been  the  irresistible  conclusion  had  men  like  Garrison,  Phillips, 
Sumner,  Sheridan,  and  Sherman  been  sent  to  the  Senate  and 
House,  and  elected  governors  and  officers  of  State?  The 
deduction  would  have  been  reasonable  at  least,  that  memory 
survived,  though  hope  might  be  dead. 


ADDRESS.  259 

Therefore,  Mr.  President,  it  is  not  singular  that  we  are 
incredulous;  that  we  demand  something  more  than  varnished 
and  veneered  professions;  that  we  distrust  handshakings  and 
-embraces,  and  languishing  sentimentalism,  and  feel  inclined 
to  say:  "Methinks  the  lady  doth  protest  too  much!"  We 
are  prompted  to  penetrate  beneath  the  surface  and  inspect  the 
social  methods,  the  political  agencies,  the  tendencies  which 
mark  the  direction  of  the  thought  of  the  people  and  define  the 
orbit  of  the  popular  will. 

No,  Mr.  President,  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves  nor  be  de 
ceived.  There  can  be  no  truce  between  right  and  wrong.  In 
the  conflict  of  ideas  there  can  be  no  armistice.  The  gigantic 
revolution  through  which  we  have  passed  did  not  arise  upon  a 
point  of  etiquette,  and  it  cannot  be  ended  by  a  polite  apology, 
It  was  a  great  struggle  between  two  hostile  and  enduring  forces, 
which  must  continue  until  one  or  the  other  shall  become  dis 
placed  and  expelled  from  our  system  of  Government.  It  must 
go  on  either  till  the  right  of  one  man,  or  class,  by  violence  or 
force,  to  prescribe  the  opinions,  control  the  acts,  and  define  the 
political  relations  of  others  is  freely  conceded,  or  until  the  right 
of  every  individual,  however  humble,  to  think,  act,  or  vote  in 
accordance  with  the  suggestions  of  his  own  judgment  and  con 
science  under  the  law  shall  be  absolutely  unquestioned.  So 
long  as  this  right  is  denied  or  abridged  under  any  pretext,  or  in 
any  locality,  North,  South,  Bast,  or  West,  in  the  shadow  of  the 
mountains,  in  the  great  valley,  or  by  the  shore  of  gulf  or  sea, 
so  long  the  conflict  must  last.  It  will  never  end  till  the  unity 
and  supremacy  of  the  Nation  is  undisputed;  till  life  is  sacred 
and  liberty  secure ;  till  the  opportunities  for  knowledge  are  as 
universally  diffused  as  the  desire  to  know,  and  the  pursuit  of 
happiness  as  unlimited  as  the  capacity  to  enjoy. 


260  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

In  view  of  these  considerations,  our  exercises  to-day  have  a 
profound  significance.  Her  Territorial  pupilage  educated  Kan 
sas  to  freedom,  and  she  has  not  forgotten  that  bloody  tuition. 
Twenty-one  years  have  elapsed  since  Garrison  and  his  associ 
ates  died  that  the  State  might  be  free.  I  see  before  me  many 
who  participated  with  them  in  those  early  contests,  and  who 
still  stand  as  sleepless  sentinels  upon  the  watch-towers  of  lib 
erty.  The  siren  and  seductive  song  of  peace  will  not  delude 
their  vigilance  nor  lull  them  into  security.  The  passions  en 
gendered  in  that  epoch  have  subsided,  but  its  lessons  remain, 
and  this  monument  which  we  dedicate  is  not  alone  a  memento 
of  the  past,  but  it  is  an  admonition  for  the  present  and  the 
future.  It  announces  that  against  all  the  blandishments  of 
policy,  the  temptations  of  place,  or  profit,  or  expediency,  we 
dedicate  ourselves  to  assert  and  defend  those  vital  principles 
of  justice  and  rectitude  which  are  the  foundation  not  alone  of 
all  individual  welfare,  but  of  true  national  grandeur. 

There  is  one  further  act  of  commemoration  to  complete  the 
full  recognition  of  the  debt  of  gratitude  we  owe  John  Brown. 
The  old  hall  of  the  House  of  Representatives  in  the  Capitol  at 
Washington,  which  is  consecrated  by  the  genius,  the  wisdom, 
and  the  patriotism  of  the  statesmen  of  the  first  century  of 
American  history,  has  been  designated  by  Congress  as  a  national 
gallery  of  statuary,  to  which  each  State  is  invited  to  contribute 
two  bronze  or  marble  statues  of  her  citizens  illustrious  for 
their  historic  renown  or  from  distinguished  civic  and  military 
services.  It  will  be  long  before  this  silent  congregation  is 
complete.  With  tardy  footsteps  they  slowly  ascend  their  ped 
estals  ;  voiceless  orators,  whose  stony  eloquence  will  salute  and 
inspire  the  generations  of  freemen  to  come;  bronze  warriors, 
whose  unsheathed  swords  seem  yet  to  direct  the  onset,  and 


ADDRESS.  261 

whose  command  will  pass  from  century  to  century,  inspiring 
an  unbroken  line  of  heroes  to  guard  with  ceaseless  care  the  her 
itage  their  valor  won. 

Kansas  is  yet  in  her  youth.  She  has  no  associations  that 
are  venerable  by  age.  All  her  dead  have  been  the  co tempo 
raries  of  those  who  yet  live.  The  verdict  of  posterity  can  only 
be  anticipated.  But,  like  all  communities,  we  have  had  our 
heroic  era,  and  it  has  closed.  It  terminated  with  the  war  which 
began  within  our  borders,  and  it  deserves  a  national  commem 
oration.  I  believe  the  concurring  judgment  of  mankind  would 
designate  him  as  the  conspicuous  representative  of  this  period 
in  our  history,  and  while, his  image  yet  exists  in  the  memories 
of  his  cotemporaries,  so  that  accurate  portraiture  is  possible, 
I  hope  the  people  of  Kansas  will  honor  themselves  by  procur 
ing  his  statue  to  be  placed  in  this  hall  as  a  gift  to  the  Nation. 
If  the  time  has  ever  been  when  it  would  have  been  inappro 
priate,  when  it  might  have  wounded  the  sensibility  or  moved 
the  indignation  of  any  of  our  brethren,  it  has  passed  away. 
We  are  conciliated  and  we  have  forgotten.  We  have  found 
"the  sweet  oblivious  antidote"  for  all  our  sorrows.  If  Kansas 
makes  this  tardy  recognition  of  one  of  her  noblest  sons,  Vir 
ginia  can  ill  afford  to  remember  that  she  hanged  as  a  traitor 
the  man  whose  cause  the  Nation  espoused  three  years  after 
wards,  and  whose  standard  she  seized  from  the  gallows  at 
Charlestown  and  bore  in  triumph  to  Appomattox  Court-house. 

Mr.  President,  my  task  is  done.  I  am  conscious  how  imper 
fectly  and  inadequately  I  have  given  expression  to  the  sugges 
tions  of  this  memorable  hour,  but  I  feel  that  the  communion 
of  this  auspicious  day  has  not  been  in  vain.  We  need  to  meas 
ure  ourselves  by  heroic  standards,  lest  we  become  dwarfed  by 
inaction.  We  require  the  tonic  and  stimulus  of  great  examples, 


262  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

lest  we  become  enervated  by  paltry  considerations.  We  shall 
soon  separate  to  meet  no  more.  Let  us  bear  away  as  we  depart 
renewed  resolves  to  devote  ourselves  to  the  preservation  of  the 
spirit  and  essence  as  well  as  the  form  of  civil  liberty.  In  a 
brief  space  we  shall  all  be  dispersed  by  death,  and  our  homes, 
our  fields,  our  possessions,  our  dignities,  our  duties  will  descend 
to  our  posterity.  Let  us  bequeath  to  them  unimpaired  the 
priceless  heritage  which  we  have  received  from  those  who 
attested  their  faith  with  their  lives.  And  if  in  the  distant 
future  the  guarantees  of  constitutional  liberty  shall  be  assailed, 
and  the  patriot  of  another  age  turn  for  inspiration  to  this,  he 
will  find  no  grander  example  of  heroic  zeal  and  lofty  self- 
devotion  than  "Old  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie." 

"They  never  fail  who  die 

In  a  great  cause.     The  block  may  soak  their  gore ; 
Their  heads  may  sodden  in  the  sun ;  their  limbs 
Be  strung  to  city  gates  and  castle  walls ; 
But  still  their  spirit  walks  abroad.     Though  years 
Elapse  and  others  share  as  dark  a  doom, 
They  but  augment  the  deep  and  sweeping  thoughts 
Which  overpower  all  others  and  conduct 
The  world  at  last  to  Freedom." 


EULOGY. 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  SENATOR  JAMES  B.  BECK,  OF  KENTUCKY. 
August  23,  1890. 


Mr.  President:  Rugged,  robust,  and  indomitable,  the  incar 
nation  of  physical  force  and  intellectual  energy,  Senator  Beck 
seemed  a  part  of  Nature,  inseparable  from  life  and -exempt  from 
infirmity.  Accustomed  for  many  sessions  to  the  exhibition  of 
his  prodigious  activity,  his  indefatigable  labors,  his  strenuous 
conflicts,  I  recall  the  emotion  with  which  I  saw  him  a  few 
months  ago  stand  painfully  in  his  place  and  announce  with 
strange  pathos  that  for  the  first  time  in  twenty  years  he  found 
himself  unable  to  participate  in  debate.  It  was  as  if  a  torrent 
had  paused  midway  in  its  descent,  or  a  tempest  had  ceased 
suddenly  in  its  stormy  progress.  He  lingered  for  awhile,  as 
the  prostrate  oak,  to  which  he  has  been  appropriately  com 
pared  by  his  late  colleague,  retains  its  verdure  for  a  brief  inter 
val  after  its  fall,  or  as  the  flame  flickers  when  the  candle  is 
burned  out;  but  his  work  was  done.  It  was  the  end. 

Estimated  by  comparison  with  his  contemporaries,  and 
measured  by  the  limitations  which  he  overcame,  his  career 
cannot  be  considered  otherwise  than  as  extraordinary  and  of 
singular  and  unusual  distinction.  An  alien,  and  not  favored 
by  Fortune,  he  conquered  the  accidents  of  birth  and  the  obsta 
cles  of  race,  scaled  the  formidable  barriers  of  tradition,  and  rose 
by  successive  steps  to  the  highest  social  and  political  station. 

263 


264  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

In  a  great  State,  proud  of  its  history,  of  the  lineage  of 
its  illustrious  families,  of  the  honor  of  its  heroic  names,  of  the 
achievements  of  its  warriors  and  statesmen  whose  renown  is 
the  imperishable  heritage  of  mankind,  this  stranger  surpassed 
the  swiftest  in  the  race  of  ambition  and  the  strongest  in  the 
strife  for  supremacy.  His  triumph  was  not  temporary,  the 
brilliant  and  casual  episode  of  an  aspiring  and  unscrupu 
lous  adventurer,  but  a  steadfast  and  permanent  conquest  of 
the  judgment  and  affections  of  an  exalted  constituency.  Nor 
was  the  recognition  of  his  superiority  confined  to  Kentucky. 
Though  he  never  forgot  his  nativity,  nor  the  associations  of 
his  youth,  he  was  by  choice  and  preference,  and  not  from  neces 
sity,  an  American.  In  his  broad  and  generous  nature  patri 
otism  was  a  passion  and  allegiance  a  sacred  and  unalterable 
obligation.  A  partisan  by  instinct  and  conviction,  there  was 
nothing  ignoble  in  his  partisanship.  He  transgressed  the 
boundaries  of  party  in  his  friendships,  and  no  appeal  to  his 
sympathy  or  compassion  was  ever  made  in  vain. 

He  has  departed.  His  term  had  not  expired,  but  his  name 
has  been  stricken  from  the  rolls  of  the  Senate.  His  credentials 
remain  in  its  archives,  but  an  honored  successor  sits  unchal 
lenged  in  his  place.  He  has  no  vote  nor  voice,  but  the  consid 
eration  of  great  measures  affecting  the  interests  of  every  citi 
zen  of  the  Republic  is  interrupted,  with  the  concurrence  and 
approval  of  all,  that  the  representatives  of  forty-two  common 
wealths  may  rehearse  the  virtues  and  commemorate  the  career 
of  an  associate  who  is  beyond  the  reach  of  praise  or  censure, 
in  the  kingdom  of  the  dead. 

The  right  to  live  is,  in  human  estimation,  the  most  sacred, 
the  most  inviolable,  the  most  inalienable.  The  joy  of  living 
in  such  a  splendid  and  luminous  day  as  this  is  inconceivable. 


EULOGY.  265 

To  exist  is  exultation.  To  live  forever  is  our  sublimest  hope. 
Annihilation,  extinction,  and  eternal  death  are  the  forebodings 
of  despair.  To  know,  to  love,  to  achieve,  to  triumph,  to  confer 
happiness,  to  alleviate  misery,  is  rapture.  The  greatest  crime 
and  the  severest  penalty  known  to  human  law  is  the  sacrifice 
and  forfeiture  of  life. 

And  yet  we  are  all  under  sentence  of  death.  Other  events 
may  or  may  not  occur.  Other  conditions  may  or  may  not 
exist.  We  may  be  rich  or  poor;  we  may  be  learned  or  ignor 
ant  ;  we  may  be  happy  or  wretched ;  but  we  all  must  die.  The 
verdict  has  been  pronounced  by  the  inexorable  decree  of  an 
omnipotent  tribunal.  Without  trial  or  opportunity  for  defense ; 
with  no  knowledge  of  the  accuser  or  the  nature  and  cause  of 
the  accusation;  without  being  confronted  with  the  witnesses 
against  us — we  have  been  summoned  to  the  bar  of  life  and  con 
demned  to  death.  There  is  no  writ  of  error  nor  review.  There 
is  neither  exculpation  nor  appeal.  All  must  be  relinquished. 
Beauty  and  deformity,  good  and  evil,  virtue  and  vice,  share 
the  same  relentless  fate.  The  tender  mother  cries  passionately 
for  mercy  for  her  first-born,  but  there  is  no  clemency.  The 
craven  felon  sullenly  prays  for  a  moment  in  which  to  be  aneled, 
but  there  is  no  reprieve.  The  soul  helplessly  beats  its  wings 
against  the  bars,  shudders,  and  disappears. 

The  proscription  extends  alike  to  the  individual  and  the 
type.  Nations  die,  and  races  expire.  Humanity  itself  is  des 
tined  to  extinction.  Sooner  or  later,  it  is  the  instruction  of 
science,  that  the  energy  of  the  earth  will  be  expended  and  it 
will  become  incapable  of  supporting  life.  A  group  of  feeble 
and  pallid  survivors  in  some  sheltered  valley  in  the  tropics 
will  behold  the  sun  sink  below  the  horizon  and  the  pitiless  stars 
glitter  in  the  midnight  sky.  The  last  man  will  perish,  and  the 


266  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

sun  will  rise  upon  the  earth  without  an  inhabitant.  Its  atmos 
phere,  its  seas,  its  light  and  heat  will  vanish,  and  the  planet 
will  be  an  idle  cinder  uselessly  spinning  in  its  orbit. 

Every  hour  some  world  dies  unnoticed  in  the  firmament; 
some  sun  smolders  to  embers  and  ashes  on  the  hearthstone  of 
infinite  space,  and  the  mighty  maze  of  systems  sweeps  ceaselessly 
onward  in  its  voyage  of  doom  to  remorseless  and  unsparing 
destruction. 

With  the  disappearance  of  man  from  the  earth  all  traces  of 
his  existence  will  be  lost.  The  palaces,  towers,  and  temples 
he  has  reared,  the  institutions  he  has  established,  the  cities 
he  has  builded,  the  books  he  has  written,  the  creeds  he  has 
constructed,  the  philosophies  he  has  formulated — all  science, 
art,  literature,  and  knowledge  will  be  obliterated  and  engulfed 
in  empty  and  vacant  oblivion. 

"The  great  globe  itself, 
Yea,  all  which  it  inherit,  shall  dissolve, 
And,  like  this  insubstantial  pageant  faded, 
Leave  not  a  rack  behind." 

There  is  an  Intelligence  so  vast  and  enduring  that  the  flam 
ing  interval  between  the  birth  and  death  of  universes  is  no  more 
than  the  flash  of  fireflies  above  the  meadows  of  summer;  a 
colossal  Power  by  which  these  stupendous  orbs  are  launched 
in  the  abyss,  like  bubbles  blown  by  a  child  in  the  morning  sun, 
and  Whose  sense  of  justice  and  reason  cannot  be  less  potential 
than  those  immutable  statutes  that  are  the  law  of  being  to  the 
creatures  He  has  made,  and  which  compel  them  to  declare  that 
if  the  only  object  of  creation  is  destruction,  if  infinity  is  the 
theatre  of  an  uninterrupted  series  of  irreparable  calamities,  is 
the  final  cause  of  life  is  death,  then  time  is  an  inexplicable 
tragedy,  and  eternity  an  illogical  and  indefensible  catastrophe. 


EULOGY.  267 

This  obsequy  is  for  the  quick,  and  not  for  the  dead.  It  is 
not  an  inconsolable  lamentation.  It  is  a  strain  of  triumph. 
It  is  an  affirmation  to  those  who  survive,  that  as  our  departed 
associate,  contemplating  at  the  close  of  his  life  the  monument 
of  good  deeds  he  had  erected,  more  enduring  than  brass  and 
loftier  than  the  pyramids  of  kings,  might  exclaim  with  the 
Roman  poet,  "Non  omnis  moriar  !"  so,  turning  to  the  silent  and 
unknown  future,  he  could  rely  with  just  and  reasonable  confi 
dence  upon  that  most  impressive  and  momentous  assurance 
ever  delivered  to  the  human  race:  "He  that  believeth  in  Me, 
though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live;  -and  whosoever  liveth 
and  believeth  in  Me  shall  never  die." 


EULOGY. 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  SENATOR  B.  H.  HILL,  OF  GEORGIA. 

January  25,  1883. 


Ben  Hill  has  gone  to  the  undiscovered  country. 

Whether  his  journey  thither  was  but  one  step  across  an 
imperceptible  frontier,  or  whether  an  interminable  ocean, 
black,  unfluctuating,  and  voiceless,  stretches  between  these 
earthly  coasts  and  those  invisible  shores — we  do  not  know. 

Whether  on  that  August  morning  after  death  he  saw  a 
more  glorious  sun  rise  with  unimaginable  splendor  above  a 
celestial  horizon,  or  whether  his  apathetic  and  unconscious 
ashes  still  sleep  in  cold  obstruction  and  insensible  oblivion — 
we  do  not  know. 

Whether  his  strong  and  subtle  energies  found  instant  exer 
cise  in  another  forum;  whether  his  dexterous  and  disciplined 
faculties  are  now  contending  in  a  higher  Senate  than  ours  for 
supremacy;  or  whether  his  powers  were  dissipated  and  dis 
persed  with  his  parting  breath — we  do  not  know. 

Whether  his  passions,  ambitions,  and  affections  still  sway, 
attract,  and  impel ;  whether  he  yet  remembers  us  as  we  remem 
ber  him — we  do  not  know. 

These  are  the  unsolved,  the  insoluble  problems  of  mortal 
life  and  human  destiny,  which  prompted  the  troubled  patriarch 
to  ask  that  momentous  question  for  which  the  centuries  have 
given  no  answer:  "If  a  man  die,  shall  he  live  again?" 

268 


269 

Every  man  is  the  center  of  a  circle  whose  fatal  circumfer 
ence  he  cannot  pass.  Within  its  narrow  confines  he  is  poten 
tial,  beyond  it  he  perishes;  and  if  immortality  be  a  splendid 
but  delusive  dream,  if  the  incompleteness  of  every  career,  even 
the  longest  and  most  fortunate,  be  not  supplemented  and  per 
fected  after  its  termination  here,  then  he  who  dreads  to  die 
should  fear  to  live,  for  life  is  a  tragedy  more  desolate  and  inex 
plicable  than  death. 

Of  all  the  dead  whose  obsequies  we  have  paused  to  solem 
nize  in  this  chamber,  I  recall  no  one  whose  untimely  fate  seems 
so  lamentable,  and  yet  so  rich  in  prophecy  of  eternal  life,  as  that 
of  Senator  Hill.     He  had  reached  the  meridian  of  his  years. 
He  stood  upon  the  high  plateau  of  middle  life,  in  that  serene 
atmosphere  where  temptation  no  longer  assails,  where  the  clam 
orous  passions  no  more  distract,  and  where  the  conditions  are 
most  favorable  for  noble  and  enduring  achievements.     His  up 
ward  path  had  been  through  stormy  adversity  and   conten 
tion,  such  as  infrequently  falls  to  the  lot  of  men.     Though  not 
without  the  tendency  to  meditation,  reverie,  and  introspec 
tion  which  accompanies  genius,  his  temperament  was  palestric. 
He  was  competitive  and  unpeaceful.     He  was  born  a  polemic 
and  controversialist,  intellectually  pugnacious  and  combative, 
so  that  he  was  impelled  to  defend  any  position  that  might  be 
assailed  or  to  attack  any  position  that  might  be  entrenched, 
not  because  the  defense  or  the  assault  were  essential,   but 
because  the  positions  were  maintained  and  that  those  who  held 
them  became  by  that  fact  alone  his  adversaries.     This  tend 
ency  of  his  nature  made  his  orbit  erratic.     He  was  meteoric 
rather  than   planetary,   and   flashed   with   irregular  splendor 
rather  than  shone  with  steady  and   penetrating  rays.     His 
advocacy  of  any  cause   was   fearless   to   the   verge  of  temer- 


270  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ity.  He  appeared  to  be  indifferent  to  applause  or  censure 
for  their  own  sake.  He  accepted  intrepidly  any  conclusions 
that  he  reached,  without  inquiring  whether  they  were  polite  or 
expedient. 

To  such  a  spirit  partisanship  was  unavoidable;  but  with 
Senator  Hill  it  did  not  degenerate  into  bigotry.  He  was  ca 
pable  of  broad  generosity,  and  extended  to  his  opponents 
the  same  unreserved  candor  which  he  demanded  for  him 
self.  His  oratory  was  impetuous  and  devoid  of  artifice.  He 
was  not  a  posturer  nor  phrase-monger.  He  was  too  intense, 
too  earnest,  to  employ  the  cheap  and  paltry  decorations  of 
discourse.  He  never  reconnoitered  a  hostile  position  nor  ap 
proached  it  by  stealthy  parallels.  He  could  not  lay  siege 
to  an  enemy,  nor  beleaguer  him,  nor  open  trenches,  and  sap 
and  mine.  His  method  was  the  charge  and  the  onset.  He  was 
the  Murat  of  senatorial  debate.  Not  many  men  of  this  gen 
eration  have  been  better  equipped  for  parliamentary  warfare 
than  he,  with  his  commanding  presence,  his  sinewy  diction,  his 
confidence  and  imperturbable  self-control. 

But  in  the  maturity  of  his  powers  and  his  fame,  with  un 
measured  opportunities  for  achievement  apparently  before  him, 
with  great  designs  unaccomplished,  surrounded  by  the  proud 
and  affectionate  solicitude  of  a  great  constituency,  the  pallid 
messenger  with  the  inverted  torch  beckoned  him  to  depart. 
There  are  few  scenes  in  history  more  tragic  than  that  protracted 
combat  with  death.  No  man  had  greater  inducements  to  live. 
But  in  the  long  struggle  against  the  inexorable  advances  of  an 
insidious  and  mortal  malady  he  did  not  falter  nor  repine.  He 
retreated  with  the  aspect  of  a  victor;  and  though  he  suc 
cumbed,  he  seemed  to  conquer.  His  sun  went  down  at  noon, 
but  it  sank  amid  the  prophetic  splendors  of  an  eternal  dawn. 


EULOGY.  271 

With  more  than  a  hero's  courage,  with  more  than  a  mar 
tyr's  fortitude,  he  waited  the  approach  of  the  inevitable  hour, 
and  went — to  the  undiscovered  country 


EULOGY. 

ON  THE  DEATH  OF  CONGRESSMAN  JAMES  N.  BURNES,  OP 

MISSOURI. 

January  24,  1889. 


Mr.  President :  These  are  the  culminating  hours  of  a  closing 
scene  in  the  drama  of  national  life.  When  this  day  returns, 
one  political  party  will  relinquish  and  another  assume  the  exec 
utive  functions  of  government.  On  every  hand  are  visible  the 
preparations  to  "welcome  the  coming  and  speed  the  parting 
guest."  At  the  eastern  portico  already  stands  the  stage  on 
which  the  great  actors  will  play  their  parts,  in  the  presence  of 
a  mighty  audience,  amid  the  mimic  pomp  and  circumstance  of 
war,  with  the  splendor  of  banners,  music's  martial  strains,  and 
the  hoarse  salutations  of  accentuating  guns. 

"Enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment"  wait  upon  the 
event  of  the  brief  interval.  While  Pleasure  wanders  restlessly 
through  the  corridors  of  the  Capitol,  Hope  and  Fear,  Ambition, 
Cupidity,  and  Revenge  sit  in  the  galleries  or  stand  at  the  gates, 
eager,  like  dying  Elizabeth,  to  exchange  millions  of  money  for 
the  inch  of  time  upon  which  success  or  failure,  wealth  or  pen 
ury,  honor  or  obloquy  depend. 

At  this  juncture  and  crisis,  when  each  instant  is  priceless, 
disregarding  every  inducement,  resisting  every  incentive  and 
solicitation,  the  Senate  proceeds,  by  unanimous  consent,  to 

consider  resolutions  of  the  highest  privilege,  reported  from  no 

272 


EULOGY.  273 

committee,  having  no  place  upon  any  calendar,  but  which  take 
precedence  of  unfinished  business  and  special  order,  upon 
which  the  yeas  and  nays  are  never  called,  and  no  negative  vote 
is  ever  recorded,  and  reverently  pauses,  in  obedience  to  the 
holiest  impulse  of  human  nature,  to  contemplate  the  profound- 
est  mystery  of  human  destiny — the  mystery  of  death. 

In  the  democracy  of  the  dead  all  men  at  last  are  equal. 
There  is  neither  rank  nor  station  nor  prerogative  'n  the  repub 
lic  of  the  grave  At  this  fatal  threshold  the  philosopher  ceases 
to  be  wise,  and  the  song  of  the  poet  is  silent.  Dives  relinquishes 
his  millions  and  Lazarus  his  rags.  The  poor  man  is  as  rich  as 
the  richest,  and  the  rich  man  is  as  poor  as  the  pauper.  The 
creditor  loses  his  usury,  and  the  debtor  is  acquitted  of  his  obli 
gation.  There  the  proud  man  surrenders  his  dignities,  the  pol 
itician  his  honors,  the  worldling  his  pleasures;  the  invalid  needs 
no  physician,  and  the  laborer  rests  from  unrequited  toil. 

Here  at  last  is  Nature's  final  decree  in  equity.  The  wrongs 
of  time  are  redressed.  Injustice  is  expiated,  the  irony  of  fate 
is  refuted ;  the  unequal  distribution  of  wealth,  honor,  capacity, 
pleasure,  and  opportunity,  which  make  life  such  a  cruel  and  in 
explicable  tragedy,  ceases  in  the  realm  of  death.  The  strong 
est  there  has  no  supremacy,  and  the  weakest  needs  no  defense. 
The  mightiest  captain  succumbs  to  that  invincible  adversary, 
who  disarms  alike  the  victor  and  the  vanquished. 

James  Nelson  Burnes,  whose  death  we  deplore  to-day,  was 
a  man  whom  Plutarch  might  have  described  or  Van  Dyke 
delineated;  massive,  rugged,  and  robust;  in  motion  slow;  in 
speech  sonorous  and  deliberate;  grave  in  aspect;  serious  in 
demeanor;  of  antique  and  heroic  mould;  the  incarnation  of 
force,  energy,  and  power. 


274  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Not  perplexed  by  moral  abstractions  nor  mental  subtleties, 
he  possessed  that  assemblage  of  qualities  which  makes  success 
in  practical  affairs  inevitable.  Great  enterprises  were  natural 
to  him.  Breadth,  grasp,  and  comprehension  characterized 
his  projects.  Early  perceiving  the  enormous  possibilities  or> 
the  valley  of  the  Missouri,  longer  than  the  Amazon  and  more 
fertile  than  the  Nile,  he  immediately  identified  himself  with 
the  forces  which  have  developed  the  empire  of  the  Northwest, 
made  the  American  Desert  an  oasis,  and  abolished  the  frontier. 
At  the  bar,  on  the  bench,  in  business  and  politics,  he  was 
foremost  for  a  quarter  of  a  century. 

When  we  first  met,  St.  Louis  was  an  outpost  of  civilization, 
and  Jefferson  City  the  farthest  point  reached  by  railroad.  In 
all  that  vast  region,  from  the  sparse  settlements  along  the  Mis 
souri  to  the  Sierra  Nevada,  from  the  Arkansas  to  the  Yellow 
stone — now  the  abode  of  millions,  soon  to  be  represented  in 
this  chamber — there  was  neither  husbandry  nor  harvest,  hab 
itation  nor  home,  save  the  casual  encampments  of  the  Bed 
ouins  of  the  plains,  more  savage  than  the  beasts  they  slew. 

We  were  neighbors,  as  that  word  goes  in  the  West.  Twenty 
miles  to  the  northward,  across  the  turbid  stream,  the  level  bars 
of  tawny  sand,  and  the  vast  expanse  of  primeval  forest,  were 
visible  from  my  door,  in  the  morning  and  evening  sun,  the  spires 
and  the  towers  of  the  city  where  he  dwelt,  and  with  whose 
history  his  name  will  be  indissolubly  associated.  Here,  in  a 
stately  home,  with  ample  fortune,  equipage,  and  retinue,  sur 
rounded  by  a  family  he  adored,  by  friends  devoted  to  him, 
and  by  enemies  whom  he  had  overcome,  he  confidently  antici 
pated  larger  triumphs  and  loftier  honors  yet  to  be. 

As  I  looked  for  the  last  time  upon  that  countenance  from 
which  for  the  first  time  in  so  many  ye~rs  no  glance  of  kindly 


EULOGY.  275 

recognition  nor  word  of  welcome  came,  I  reflected  upon  the 
impenetrable  and  insoluble  mystery  of  death.  But  if  death 
be  the  end;  if  the  life  of  Burnes  terminated  upon  "this  bank 
and  shoal  of  time,"  if  no  morning  is  to  dawn  upon  the  night  in 
which  he  sleeps — then  sorrow  has  no  consolation,  and  this 
impressive  and  solemn  ceremony  which  we  observe  to-day  has 
no  more  significance  than  the  painted  pageant  of  the  stage. 
If  the  existence  of  Burnes  was  but  a  troubled  dream,  his  death 
oblivion,  what  avails  it  that  the  Senate  should  pause  to  recount 
his  virtues ;  and  that  his  associates  should  assemble  in  solemn 
sorrow  around  his  voiceless  sepulchre?  Neither  veneration  nor 
reverence  is  due  the  dead  if  they  are  but  dust;  no  cenotaph 
should  be  reared  to  preserve  for  posterity  the  memory  of 
their  achievements  if  those  who  come  after  them  are  to  be 
only  their  successors  in  annihilation  and  extinction. 

Unless  we  survive,  the  ties  of  birth,  affection,  and  friend 
ship  are  a  delusive  mockery ;  the  structure  of  laws  and  customs 
upon  which  society  is  based,  a  detected  imposture;  the  codes 
of  morality  and  justice,  the  sentiments  of  gratitude  and  faith, 
are  empty  formulas,  without  force  or  consecration.  If  in  this 
world  only  we  have  hope  and  consciousness,  why  should  their 
inculcations  be  heeded?  Duty  must  be  a  chimera.  Our  pas 
sions  and  our  pleasures  should  be  the  guides  of  conduct,  and 
virtue  is  indeed  a  superstition  if  life  ends  at  the  grave. 

This  is  the  conclusion  which  the  philosophy  of  negation 
must  accept  at  last.  Such  is  the  felicity  of  those  degrading 
precepts  which  make  the  epitaph  the  end.  If  these  teachers 
are  right,  if  the  life  of  Burnes  is  like  an  arrow  that  is  spent, 
then  we  are  atoms  in  a  moral  chaos ;  obedience  to  law  is  inde 
fensible  servitude;  rulers  and  magistrates  are  despots  toler 
ated  only  by  popular  imbecility;  justice  is  a  denial  of  liberty; 


276  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

honor  and  truth  are  trivial  rhapsodies;  murder  ana  perjury 
are  derisive  jests,  and  their  harsh  definitions  are  frivolous 
phrases  invented  by  tyrants  to  impose  on  the  timidity  of 
cowards  and  the  credulity  of  slaves. 

If  the  life  of  Burnes  is  as  a  taper  that  is  burned  out,  then 
we  treasure  his  memory  and  his  example  in  vain,  and  the  latest 
prayej  of  his  departing  spirit  has  no  more  sanctity  to  us,  who 
soon  or  late  must  follow  him,  than  the  whisper  of  winds  that 
stir  the  leaves  of  the  protesting  forest,  or  the  murmur  of  waves 
that  break  upon  the  complaining  shore. 


FIAT  JUSTITIA. 


(Speech  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  Thursday,  January  23,  1890.) 

Mr.  INGALLS  :  Mr.  President,  pursuant  to  notice  heretofore 
given,  I  move  that  the  Senate  do  now  proceed  to  the  considera 
tion  of  the  bill  offered  by  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  [Mr. 
Butler],  and  I  ask  that  it  may  be  read  at  length  for  information. 

The  VICE-PRESIDKNT:    The  bill  will  be  read  at  length. 

The  Chief  Clerk  read  the  bill  (S.  1121)  to  provide  for  the 
emigration  of  persons  of  color  from  the  Southern  States,  as 
follows : 

"Be  it  enacted,  etc,,  That  upon  the  application  of  any  person  of  color 
to  the  nearest  United  States  Commissioner,  setting  forth  that  he,  she,  01 
they  desire  to  emigrate  from  any  of  the  Southern  States,  and  designating 
the  point  to  which  he,  she,  or  they  wish  to  go,  with  a  view  to  citizenship 
and  permanent  residence  in  said  country,  and  also  setting  forth  that  he, 
she,  or  they  are  too  poor  to  pay  the  necessary  traveling  expenses,  and  that 
the  move  is  intended  to  be  permanent  and  is  made  in  good  faith,  and  shall 
verify  said  application  under  oath  before  said  Commissioner,  it  shall  be 
the  duty  of  said  Commissioner  to  trasmit  said  application  with  a  written 
statement,  giving  his  opinion  as  to  the  merits  and  bona  fides  of  said  appli 
cation,  to  the  Quartermaster-General  of  the  Army,  and  shall  be  allowed  a 
fee  of  50  cents  for  each  of  said  applications;  but  in  no  case  will  fees  be 
allowed  for  more  than  one  application  for  each  family,  the  members  of 
which  shall  be  included  in  one  application  by  the  head  of  the  same.  And 
in  the  case  where  the  application  is  made  by  an  adult  person  without  a 
family  and  on  his  or  her  own  behalf,  then  the  same  allowance  of  50  cents 
shall  be  allowed  for  such  application 

"SEC.  2.  That  it  shall  be  the  duty  of  the  Quartermaster -General,  on 
receipt  of  said  application,  to  furnish  transportation  in  kind  for  the  person 
or  persons  embraced  therein,  by  the  nearest  practicable  route  from  the 
home  of  the  applicant  or  applicants  to  the  point  of  destination,  and  upon 

277 


278  JOHN  JAMES  IXGALLS. 

the  cheapest  and  most  economical  plan,  whether  by  railroad  or  water 
transportation,  and  shall  account  for  the  same  to  the  proper  accounting 
officers  of  the  Government,  as  is  now  provided  by  law. 

"SEC.  3.  That  the  sum  of  $5,000,000  be,  and  the  same  is  hereby, 
appropriated,  out  of  any  money  in  the  Treasury  not  otherwise  appropri 
ated,  to  enable  the  Quartermaster-General  to  carry  out  the  provisions  of 
this  act. 

"SEC.  4.  That  the  Quartermaster-General  be,  and  he  is  hereby 
authorized  and  directed  to  prepare  forms  of  application,  verification,  etc., 
to  be  used  under  the  provisions  of  this  act,  and  such  rules  and  regulations 
as  may  be  necessary  to  protect  the  Government  against  imposition,  to  be 
furnished  to  any  United  States  Commissioners  upon  proper  application 
or  requisition,  free  of  charge,  and  shall  report  the  same  to  Congress  for  its 
information." 

Mr.  INGALLS:  Mr.  President,  the  race  to  which  we  belong 
is  the  most  arrogant  and  rapacious,  the  most  exclusive  and 
indomitable  in  history.  It  is  the  conquering  and  the  uncon 
querable  race,  through  which  alone  man  has  taken  possession 
of  the  physical  and  moral  world.  To  our  race  humanity  is 
indebted  for  religion,  for  literature,  for  civilization.  It  has  a 
genius  for  conquest,  for  politics,  for  jurisprudence,  and  for 
administration.  The  home  and  the  family  are  its  contribu 
tions  to  society.  Individualism,  fraternity,  liberty,  and  equal 
ity  have  been  its  contributions  to  the  State.  All  other  races 
have  been  its  enemies  or  its  victims. 

This,  sir,  is  not  the  time,  nor  is  this  the  occasion,  to  con 
sider  the  profoundly  interesting  question  of  the  unity  of  races. 
It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  either  by  instinct  or  design  the  Cau 
casian  race  at  every  step  of  its  progress  from  barbarism  to 
enlightenment  has  refused  to  mingle  its  blood  or  assimilate  with 
the  two  other  great  human  families,  the  Mongolian  and  the 
African,  and  has  persistently  rejected  adulteration.  It  has 
found  the  fullest  and  most  complete  realization  of  its  funda 
mental  ideas  of  government  and  society  upon  this  continent, 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  279 

and  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  upon  this  arena  its  future  and 
most  magnificent  triumphs  are  to  be  accomplished. 

The  exiles  of  Plymouth  and  of  Jamestown  brought  hither 
political  and  social  ideas  which  have  developed  with  inconceiv 
able  energy  and  power.  They  ventured  upon  a  hitherto  untried 
experiment,  a  daring  innovation,  a  paradox  in  government. 
They  who  rule  are  those  who  are  to  be  governed.  The  rulers 
frame  the  law  to  which  they  themselves  must  submit.  The 
kings  are  the  subjects,  and  those  who  are  free  voluntarily  sur 
render  a  portion  of  their  freedom  that  their  own  liberties  may 
be  more  secure.  The  ablest  soothsayer  could  not  have  foretold 
the  wonderful  development  of  the  first  century  of  American 
nationality,  the  increase  of  population,  the  expanse  of  bound 
ary,  the  aggrandizement  of  resources.  The  frontier  has  been 
abolished;  the  climate  has  been  conquered;  the  desert  sub 
dued.  For  these  conditions,  which  could  not  have  been  pre 
dicted,  for  which  there  were  neither  maxims,  nor  formulas,  nor 
precedents,  the  genius  of  the  Caucasian  race  has  furnished  an 
equivalent  in  the  Constitution  under  which  we  live,  an  organic 
law  flexible  enough  to  permit  indefinite  and  unlimited  expan 
sion,  and  at  the  same  time  rigid  enough  hitherto  to  protect  the 
rights  of  the  weakest  and  the  humblest  from  invasion. 

From  its  latent  resources  have  been  evoked  vast  and  unsus 
pected  powers  that  have  become  the  charters  of  liberty  to  the 
victims  of  its  misconstruction;  beneath  its  beneficent  cove 
nants  every  faith  has  found  a  shelter,  every  creed  a  sanctuary, 
and  every  wrong  redress.  It  has  reconciled  interests  that  were 
apparently  in  irrepressible  conflict.  It  has  resisted  the  rancor 
of  party  spirit,  the  vehemence  of  faction,  the  perils  of  foreign 
immigration,  the  collision  of  civil  war,  the  jealous  menace  of 
foreign  and  hostile  nations.  It  has  realized  up  to  this  time 


280  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  splendid  dream  of  the  great  English  apostle  of  modern  lib 
erty,  who  said  in  the  midst  of  the  struggle  for  the  dismember 
ment  of  the  American  Union : 

"I  have  another  and  a  broader  vision  before  my  gaze.  It  may  be  a  vis 
ion,  but  I  cherish  it.  I  see  one  vast  confederation  reaching  from  the  frozen 
North  in  unbroken  line  to  the  glowing  South,  and  from  the  wild  bi-llows  of 
the  Atlantic  to  the  calmer  waters  of  the  Pacific  main ;  and  I  see  one  peo 
ple  and  one  language,  and  one  law  and  one  faith,  and  all  over  that  wide  con 
tinent  a  home  of  freedom  and  a  refuge  for  the  oppressed  of  every  race  and 
every  clime." 

Upon  the  threshold  of  our  second  century,  Mr.  President, 
we  are  confronted  with  the  most  formidable  and  portentous 
problem  ever  submitted  to  a  free  people  for  solution ;  complex, 
unprecedented,  involving  social,  moral,  and  political  considera 
tions,  party  supremacy,  and  in  the  estimation  of  many,  though 
not  in  my  own,  in  its  ultimate  consequences  the  existence  of 
our  system  of  government.  Its  gravity  cannot  be  exagger 
ated  and  its  discussion  has  been  deferred  too  long.  Its  solu 
tion  will  demand  all  the  resources  of  the  statesmanship  of  the 
present  and  the  future  to  prevent  a  crisis  that  may  become  a 
catastrophe.  It  should  be  approached  with  candor,  with  sol 
emnity,  with  patriotic  purpose,  with  earnest  scrutiny,  without 
subterfuge  and  without  reserve. 

Let  me  state  it  in  the  language  of  one  of  the  most  brilliant, 
the  most  impassioned  and  powerful  of  all  the  orators  of  the 
South,  now  unfortunately  no  more.  When  Grady  died,  a  lumi 
nous  and  dazzling  meteor  disappeared  from  the  Southern  firm 
ament.  I  regret  that  I  never  met  him.  On  his  journey  home 
ward  from  Boston  he  sent  me  a  message  from  his  car,  where 
he  lay  ill,  which  reached  me  too  late  to  enable  me  to  see  him, 
and  now  he  has  departed  for  the  undiscovered  country.  But 
though  dead  he  yet  speaketh,  and  I  will  ask  the  Secretary  to 


FIAT  JUSTITIA. 


read  an  extract  from  that  extraordinary  oration  which  he  deliv- 
erd  before  the  merchants  of  Boston  in  December  last  upon  the 
race  problem  in  the  South. 

The  Chief  Clerk  read  as  follows: 

"Note  its  appalling  conditions.  Two  utterly  dissimilar  races  on  the 
same  soil,  with  equal  political  and  civil  rights;  almost  equal  in  num 
bers,  but  terribly  unequal  in  intelligence  and  responsibility;  each  pledged 
against  fusion;  one  for  a  century  in  servitude  to  the  other,  and  freed  at 
last  by  a  desolating  war;  the  experiment  sought  by  neither,  but  ap 
proached  by  both  with  doubt  —  these  are  the  conditions.  Under  these, 
adverse  at  every  point,  we  are  required  to  carry  these  two  races  in  peace 
and  honor  to  the  end. 

"Never,  sir,  has  such  a  task  been  given  to  mortal  stewardship.  Never 
before  in  this  Republic  has  the  white  race  divided  on  the  rights  of  an  alien 
race.  The  red  man  was  cut  down  as  a  weed  because  he  hindered  the  way 
of  the  American  citizen.  The  yellow  man  was  shut  out  of  this  Republic 
because  he  is  an  alien  and  inferior.  The  red  man  was  the  owner  of  the 
land  ;  the  yellow  man  highly  civilized  and  assimilable  ;  but  they  hindered 
both  sections  and  are  gone.  But  the  black  man,  clothed  with  every  priv- 
'lege  of  government,  affecting  but  one  section,  is  pinned  to  the  soil,  and 
my  people  commanded  to  make  good  at  any  hazard  and  at  any  cost  his 
full  and  equal  heirship  of  American  privilege  and  prosperity.  It  matters 
not  that  every  other  race  has  been  routed  or  excluded  without  rhyme  or 
reason.  It  matters  not  that  wherever  the  whites  and  blacks  have  touched, 
in  any  era  or  in  any  clime,  there  has  been  irreconcilable  violence.  It  mat 
ters  not  that  no  two  races,  however  similar,  have  ever  lived  anywhere  at 
any  time  on  the  same  soil  with  equal  rights  in  peace.  In  spite  of  these 
things,  we  are  commanded  to  make  good  this  change  of  American  policy, 
which  has  not  perhaps  changed  American  prejudice  ;  to  make  certain 
here  what  has  elsewhere  been  impossible  between  whites  and  blacks;  and 
to  reverse  under  the  very  worst  conditions  the  universal  verdict  of  racial 
history." 

Mr.  INGALLS:  Let  me  state,  Mr.  President,  the  arithmetic 
of  this  problem.  In  1860  there  were  4,440,000  negroes,  slave 
and  free,  in  the  United  States;  in  1870,  4,480,000;  in  1880, 
6,580,000.  The  increase  from  1860  to  1870  was  40,000,  and 
from  1870  to  1880  it  was  2,  100,000,  an  increase  which,  I  may  say 
in  passing,  I  believe  can  only  be  accounted  for  upon  the  theory 


282  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

of  a  deliberate,  premeditated,  and  intentional  fraud  upon  the 
census.  This  would  make  an  increase  for  the  last  decade  of  35 
per  cent,  while  the  entire  population  of  the  country  increased 
not  quite  30  per  cent  in  that  interval,  immigration  included. 
In  Louisiana  the  increase  was  1 19,000,  while  the  whites  increase 
but  92,000.  In  Georgia  the  increase  was  178,000  whites  and 
180,000  blacks.  In  Mississippi,  about  which  I  shall  have 
something  to  say  hereafter,  the  increase  was  97,000  whites  and 
200,000  blacks.  In  South  Carolina  it  was  102,000  whites  and 
189,000  blacks. 

But  whether  this  extraordinary  and  unprecedented  increase 
was  due  to  a  desire  for  additional  representation  or  not,  it  may 
be  admitted  that  the  numerical  increase  of  the  colored  race 
was  undoubtedly  considerable,  and  it  may  be  conceded,  I  think, 
that  with  the  improvement  in  their  physical  condition  and  their 
observance  of  the  laws  of  longevity  the  ratio  will  probably 
grow  larger,  so  that  by  the  close  of  this  century  there  will  pos 
sibly  be  not  less  than  fifteen  millions  of  the  black  and  colored 
races  upon  this  continent. 

The  problem  is  still  further  complicated  by  the  fact  that 
they  are  gregarious.  They  instinctively  separate  themselves 
into  their  own  communities,  with  their  own  habits,  their  own 
customs,  their  own  methods  of  life.  They  worship  separately 
and  they  are  taught  separately.  The  line  of  cleavage  between 
the  whites  and  blacks  is  becoming  constantly  more  distinct  and 
perceptible.  There  is  neither  amalgamation  nor  absorption 
nor  assimilation.  Politically  they  are  affiliated  with  the  vic 
tors  in  the  late  Civil  War.  Socially,  and  by  locality  and  resi 
dence,  they  are  indissolubly  associated  with  the  vanquished. 
Will  this  experiment,  which  has  failed  elsewhere,  succeed  here? 
Can  the  black  race  exist  as  citizens  of  the  United  States  upon 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  283 

terms  of  political  equality  with  the  Caucasian  race?     If  not, 
why  not?   What  must  be  done  with  them?    This  is  the  problem. 

Mr.  Frederick  Douglass,  the  most  illustrious  living  repre 
sentative  of  his  race — greater,  I  think,  by  his  Caucasian  re- 
enforcement  than  by  his  African  blood — once  said  to  me  that 
he  thought  as  prejudice  and  social  and  political  antagonism 
disappeared  the  races  would  blend,  coalesce,  and  become  homo 
genous.  I  do  not  agree  with  him.  There  is  no  natural  affinity 
between  the  races,  and  this  solution  of  the  problem  is  impos 
sible,  and,  in  my  opinion,  would  be  most  deplorable.  Events 
have  shown  that  the  relations  between  the  sexes  in  the  time  of 
slavery  were  compulsory  and  have  disappeared  with  freedom, 
The  hybrids  were  the  product  of  white  fathers  and  black  moth 
ers,  and  seldom  or  never  of  black  fathers  and  white  mothers, 
and  the  inference  from  this  result  ethnologically  is  conclusive 
of  that  question.  Such  a  solution,  in  my  judgment,  would 
perpetuate  the  vices  of  both  races  and  the  virtues  of  neither. 
There  is  no  blood-poison  so  fatal  as  adulteration  of  race. 

Races  that  cannot  intermarry  do  not  blend  and  become 
homogeneous.  Englishmen,  Irishmen,  Frenchmen,  Germans, 
and  Scandinavians  emigrate  and  in  a  generation  they  are  Amer 
icans  ;  their  blood  mingles  with  the  great  current  of  our  national 
life,  and  of  its  alien  origin  nothing  remains  but  a  memory,  a 
name,  a  tradition.  Sometimes  the  invader  becomes  the  con 
queror,  like  the  Tartar  in  China,  the  Normans  in  England ;  but 
history  contains  no  record  of  two  separate  races  peacefully 
existing  upon  terms  of  absolute  social  and  political  equality 
under  the  same  system  of  government.  Antagonism  is  inev 
itable.  They  become  rivals  and  competitors,  and  in  the  strug 
gle  for  supremacy  the  weaker  has  gone  down. 


284  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

The  leaders  of  opinion  in  the  South  have  evidently  reached 
the  conclusion  that  the  present  state  of  affairs  cannot  continue 
indefinitely,  and  the  Senators  from  Alabama,  South  Carolina, 
and  Florida,  together  with  the  editors  of  many  newspapers 
and  many  orators,  have  invited  and  opened  this  debate.  Thus 
far  it  has  been  conducted  with  unimpassioned  and  philosophic 
decorum  and  deliberation,  which  I  shall  endeavor  to  imitate. 
The  Senator  from  South  Carolina  deprecated  vituperation.. 
It  shall  not  come ;  it  is  not  necessary.  The  most  mordant  and 
biting  criticism  that  can  be  made  about  the  situation  in  the 
South  is— the  truth. 

I  shall  be  impartial  and  judicial  as  far  as  I  may  be  able; 
and  in  that  vein  I  admit  that  historically  the  responsibility  for 
the  presence  of  the  African  race  upon  this  continent  is  not  con 
fined  to  the  States  that  rebelled  in  1861,  but  belongs  indiscrim 
inately,  share  and  share  alike,  to  all  the  white  people  of  the 
United  States,  North  and  South.  Slavery  retired  from  the 
valleys  of  the  Merimac,  the  Connecticut,  and  the  Hudson  to 
the  Potomac  and  southward,  by  the  operation  of  social,  eco 
nomic,  and  natural  laws,  and  not  through  the  superior  morality 
of  those  who  defended  the  Union  against  the  assaults  of  treason. 

I  am  a  native  of  Massachusetts.  My  ancestors  held  slaves 
in  that  State  in  the  last  century.  I  remember  when  a  child 
with  what  interest  I  read  in  the  school-books  that  poem 
beginning : 

"  Chain' d  in  the  market-place  he  stood 

A  man  of  giant  frame ; 
Before  the  gath'ring  multitude. 
That  shrunk  to  hear  his  name." 

I  recall  the  teachings  of  Wendell  Phillips  and  Lloyd  Garrison 
and  the  other  apostles  of  human  freedom.  Wendell  Phillips, 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  285 

Lloyd  Garrison,  and  Lovejoy  were  as  right  in  1850  as  they  were 
in  1 860,  but  their  appeals  fell  upon  deaf  ears  in  the  land  of  the 
Puritans.  Abolitionists  were  mobbed,  despitefully  and  con- 
tumeliously  treated,  reviled  and  outlawed  by  the  highest  so 
cial  classes.  The  conscience  of  New  England  never  was  thor 
oughly  aroused  to  the  immorality  of  African  slavery  until  it 
ceased  to  be  profitable,  and  the  North  did  not  finally  deter 
mine  to  destroy  the  system  until  convinced  that  its  continuance 
threatened  not  only  their  industrial  independence,  but  their 
political  supremacy. 

Further,  Mr.  President,  it  may  be  admitted  that  the  eman 
cipation  of  the  slaves  was  not  contemplated  by  any  consider 
able  portion  of  the  American  people  when  the  war  for  the  Union 
began;  and  it  was  not  brought  to  pass  until  the  fortunes  of 
war  became  desperate,  and  was  then  justified  and  defended 
upon  the  plea  of  military  necessity. 

Enfranchisement  was  logical  and  inevitable,  but  it  was  not, 
as  the  Senator  from  Florida  [Mr.  Pasco]  said  in  his  speech  the 
other  day,  "A  device  to  secure  the  perpetuation  of  power  in 
the  Republican  party."  That  stale  calumny,  sir,  is  old  enough 
to  be  superannuated  and  placed  on  the  retired  list.  On  the 
contrary,  the  apprehensive  reluctance  of  the  victors  to  confer 
citizenship  and  suffrage  upon  the  freedmen  was  overcome  only 
by  incontrovertible  evidence  that  the  vanquished  intended  to 
reduce  them  to  a  condition  of  servitude  more  degraded  and 
revolting  than  that  from  which  they  had  been  redeemed. 

I  will  go  one  step  further,  Mr.  President,  and  say  that  the 
Africanization  of  this  continent,  or  of  any  considerable  part 
of  it,  is  not  desirable.  Were  the  colored  race  not  here,  the 
probabilities  are  strong  that  they  would  not  be  invited  to 
come  here.  The  proposition  originally  to  introduce  seven 


286  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

million  Africans  would  be  discussed  with  great  deliberation 
before  it  would  be  accepted ;  and  I  may  supplement  this  state 
ment  with  the  additional  opinion  that  were  they  not  here, 
rather  than  endure  what  they  have  suffered  in  two  centuries 
of  slavery  and  twenty-five  years  of  ostensible  freedom,  they 
would  unanimously  prefer  to  continue  in  association  with 
their  kindred  in  the  Dark  Continent. 

But  they  are  here,  Mr.  President,  without  their  volition  or 
our  own.  They  are  natives ;  they  are  citizens.  Man  for  man, 
they  are  our  political  equals.  They  came  here  involuntarily 
as  prisoners  of  war,  captured  in  battle.  They  are  of  ancient 
lineage,  genuine  F.  F.  V.s,  for  the  earliest  migration  was  in 
August,  1619,  antedating  the  historic  voyage  of  the  Mayflower. 

As  slaves,  they  drained  the  marshes,  they  felled  the  forests, 
they  cultivated  the  fields,  and  assisted  by  their  unrequited 
toil  in  piling  up  the  accumlated  wealth  of  the  Nation.  And, 
sir,  while  their  masters  were  absent  in  camp  and  field,  doing 
battle  to  rivet  more  firmly  the  chains  by  which  they  were 
bound  and  to  make  slavery  the  corner-stone  of  a  new  social 
and  political  structure,  they  remained  upon  the  plantations 
and  in  the  cities  in  charge  of  the  estates  and  of  the  families 
of  their  owners,  raising  the  supplies  without  which  the  war 
could  not  have  been  prolonged.  General  insurrections  and  ser 
vile  uprisings  would  have  dissolved  the  Confederate  armies; 
but  they  did  not  occur.  Docile,  faithful,  and  submissive,  the 
slaves  were  guilty  of  no  violence  against  person  or  property. 
They  lighted  no  midnight  flame ;  they  shed  no  innocent  blood 
It  seems  incredible  that  gratitude  should  not  have  defended 
and  sheltered  them  from  the  hideous  and  indescribable  wrongs 
and  crimes  of  which  they  have  been  for  a  quarter  of  a  century 
the  guiltless  and  unresisting  victims. 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  287 

The  same  impulses,  sir,  that  made  them  loyal  to  their 
masters  during  the  war  have  made  them  faithful  to  their  deliv 
erers  since.  Their  allegiance  to  the  party  of  Lincoln  and  of 
Grant  is  persistent  and  unswerving.  Their  instincts  were  more 
infallible  than  reason.  They  have  voted  with  their  friends. 
They  have  begun  to  acquire  homes  and  property.  They  have 
filled  savings-banks  with  their  earnings.  They  have  assumed 
definite  domestic  relations.  They  have  gathered  about  the 
school-master,  and  eagerly  studied  the  alphabet,  the  primer 
and  the  Bible.  By  their  sobriety,  by  their  obedience  to  law, 
by  their  decorous  demeanor,  they  have  justified  the  temerity 
of  those  who  dared  to  maintain  that  they  possessed  intelligence 
superior  to  the  brutes  and  souls  that  were  immortal. 

But  it  can  no  longer  be  denied  that  suffrage  and  citizen 
ship  have  hitherto  not  justified  the  anticipations  of  those  by 
whom  they  were  conferred.  They  have  not  been  effective  in 
the  hands  of  the  freedmen,  either  for  attack  or  defense.  They 
have  been  neither  shield  nor  sword.  Citizenship  to  them  has 
been  a  name  and  suffrage  a  mockery.  Force  and  violence 
have  confessedly  been  supplemented  and  supplanted  by  fraud, 
which  is  safer  and  equally  efficient.  The  suppression  of  the 
black  vote  is  practically  complete.  The  evidence  is  conclu 
sive,  it  is  overwhelming  from  every  quarter,  North  and  South, 
from  Democrats  and  Republicans,  from  senators,  editors,  and 
orators,  that  the  whites  of  the  South  have  deliberately  deter 
mined  to  eliminate  the  negro  as  the  controlling  factor  from 
their  social  and  political  system.  . 

I  have  some  testimony  on  this  point,  and  I  shall  quote 
none  but  Southern  men  and  members  of  the  Democratic  party 
upon  the  subject.  I  refer  once  more  to  the  significant,  extraor 
dinary  oration  delivered  by  the  Georgia  orator  in  Boston.  Re- 


288  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ferring  to  the  President 's  message — and  he  was  there  for  the 
purpose  of  speaking  to  the  people  of  New  England  and  the 
country  about  the  race  problem  in  the  South — referring  to 
the  President's  message,  he  says : 

"But  we  are  asked,  'When  will  the  negro  cast  a  free  ballot?'  " 

Does  he  say  that  the  negro  does  cast  a  free  ballot  ?  No,  sir. 
He  says: 

"When  the  ignorant,  anywhere,  can  cast  a  ballot  not  dominated  by  the 
will  of  the  intelligent;  when  the  laborer,  anywhere — " 

and  this  shows  his  want  of  conception  and  comprehension  of 
the  relations  between  the  laborer  and  the  employer — 

"when  the  laborer,  anywhere,  casts  his  vote  unhindered  by  his  boss;  when 
the  poor  everywhere  are  not  influenced  by  the  money  and  devices  of  the 
rich ;  when  the  might  of  the  strong  and  the  responsible  will  not  everywhere 
control  the  suffrage  of  the  weak  and  the  shiftless — then,  and  not  till  then, 
will  the  ballot  of  the  negro  be  free." 

I  quote  from  a  Democratic  newspaper  on  the  i6th  of  Octo 
ber,  1889,  in  Tennessee,  in  commenting  upon  what  was  called 
the  election  in  Mississippi  last  fall.  It  seems  that  the  Mem 
phis  Avalanche  had  published  in  an  editorial  the  following 
statement : 

"About  the  size  of  the  situation  in  Mississippi  is,  that  Chalmers  could 
not  get  the  office  of  governor,  no  matter  how  large  his  vote  might  be." 

The  St.  Louis  Republic  thought  this  was  a  rash  remark  for 
a  Democratic  newspaper  in  Tennessee  to  make,  and  so  it  gen 
tly  and  mildly  reproached  and  reproved  the  editor  for  his  un 
guarded  declaration ;  whereupon  the  newspaper  that  had  been 
chided  comes  back  with  another  editorial  in  answer  to  the  St- 
T,ouis  Republic,  and  says: 

"We  may  say  in  passing,  however,  that  the  white — or,  in  other  words, 
the  Democratic — vote  of  this  district  is  much  greater  than  the  Republican 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  289 

vote,  and  that  it  is  notorious  that  Mr.  Phelan  received  practically  all  of  it. 
It  is  equally  well  established  that  General  Chalmers  could  not  control  the 
negro  vote  of  the  Second  Mississippi  District,  while  his  opponent,  Judge 
Morgan,  obtained  the  united  and  enthusiastic  support  of  his  party. 
"But  this  is  not  to  the  point," 

says  this  candid  editor  on  the  i6th  of  October.  I  am  not 
going  into  the  crypts  of  the  past,  Mr.  President.  This  is  not 
an  archaeological  research.  These  are  no  torsos  and  relics,  no 
cadavers  exhumed  for  political  purposes  during  the  campaign. 
It  is  an  utterance  on  the  1 6th  of  October,  1889,  about  a  canvass 
then  pending.  Says  the  editor : 

"The  Republic  will  please  take  notice  that  the  white  people  of  the  South 
do  not  intend  to  submit  to  be  governed  by  negroes  in  any  manner  whatso 
ever.  They  have  said  so  in  deeds  at  every  election  for  twenty  years,  and 
henceforth  they  mean  to  assert  it  in  words.  There  ought  to  be  no  misun 
derstanding  whatever.  The  Northern  Republican  press  and  the  South- 
hating  politicians  of  the  North  may  make  all  the  capital  of  it  they  please. 
God  Almighty  never  intended,  the  framers  of  the  Constitution  never  in 
tended,  that  the  descendants  of  African  slaves  should  rule  America  or  any 
part  of  it. 

"We  trust  we  have  been  sufficiently  explicit  on  this  occasion  to  satisfy 
our  esteemed  contemporary,  the  Republic,  and  all  other  inquiring  friends." 

As  the  result  of  that  determination  on  the  part  of  the 
Democrats  of  Mississippi,  General  Chalmers,  who  was  the 
candidate  of  the  Republican  party  for  governor,  a  native,  I 
believe,  of  that  State,  certainly  of  the  South,  a  Confederate 
without  fear  and  without  reproach,  was  compelled  to  abandon 
his  campaign,  and  he  issued  a  final  address,  from  which  I  will 
read  a  few  extracts: 

"As  Republicans  of  Mississippi,  we  are  compelled  to  withdraw  our 
State  ticket.  We  knew  that  our  votes  would  be  stolen  or  voters  driven 
from  the  polls,  but  we  hoped  in  the  large  towns  and  cities  at  least  the  sem 
blance  of  free  speech  might  still  remain  to  us ;  but  our  candidates  are  not 
safely  allowed  to  discuss  our  protest.  Our  course  has  always  been  con 
servative.  When  the  armed  revolution  of  1875  wrested  the  State  from 


290  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

us,  Mississippi  was  the  only  Southern  State  unburdened  with  a  State  debt. 
The  Constitution  of  the  United  States  guarantees  to  each  State  a  repub 
lican  form  of  government.  Mississippi  is  governed  by  a  minority  despot 
ism,  and  we  appeal  to  our  country  for  redress.  The  Constitution  that  we 
adopted  is  the  only  one  in  the  South  so  satisfactory  that  it  has  not  been 
changed. 

"Our  laws  stand  substantially  unchanged  and  unrepealed,  but  we  are 
Republicans,  and  this  L»  our  offense.  That  we  are  riot  actuated  by  cow 
ardice  in  withdrawing  from  the  contest  is  shown  by  the  past.  For  four 
teen  years,  ever  since  the  infamous  Mississippi  plan  was  adopted,  our  path 
has  been  marked  by  the  blood  of  our  slain.  Not  only  the  well-known 
leaders  who  bravely  died  at  the  head  of  the  column,  but  the  faithful  fol 
lowers  known  only  in  the  cabin  of  the  lowly.  We  refer  not  only  to  such 
well-known  slaughters  as  Kemper  and  Copiah,  Clinton  and  Carrollton,  at 
Wahallak  and  Vicksburg,  Yazoo  City  and  Leflore,  but  to  the  nameless 
killing  by  creek  and  bayou,  on  highway  and  byway.  They  are  the  Demo 
cratic  arguments  which  crush  us.  We  can  do  no  more.  We  dare  no 
longer  carry  our  battered  and  blood-stained  Republican  flag.  We  appeal 
to  the  Nation." 

And  so,  Mr.  President,  the  campaign  closed,  the  candi 
dates  withdrew;  the  election  was  practically  conceded  to 
those  who,  by  this  tyranny  and  despotism,  had  prevented  the 
exercise  of  the  right  of  suffrage  by  American  citizens.  This  I 
consider  as  one  of  the  most  tragic  utterances  that  ever  occurred 
in  political  history. 

There  are  other  illustrations  of  the  purpose  and  determin 
ation  of  the  Southern  whites  to  prevent  absolutely  the  exercise 
of  political  rights  by  colored  Republicans.  There  was  an 
election,  or  what  was  called  an  election,  in  this  same  State  of 
Mississippi  on  the  6th  day  of  the  present  month,  seventeen 
days  ago.  There  had  been  a  previous  one  in  the  same  town, 
with  which  the  country  is  somewhat  familiar.  I  will  ask  the 
Chief  Clerk  to  read  an  extract  from  the  Jackson  (Mississippi) 
Clarion,  printed  on  the  second  day  of  January,  1890,  twenty- 
one  days  ago. 

The  Chief  Clerk  read  as  follows: 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  291 

"WHO  CARES?— THE  BOYS  ARE  COMING. 
"The  Yazoo  Democrats  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Leflore  Tigers  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Copiah  Reliables  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Rankin  Rangers  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Warren  Warriors  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Madison  Guards  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  d.m't  like  it? 
The  Bolton  Boys  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Raymond  Rifles  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Clinton  Corps  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Terry  Terriblcs  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Byram  Bulldozers  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 
The  Edwards  Dragoons  will  be  here  Monday  to  see  there  is  a  fair  election. 

Who  cares  if  the  McGill  men  don't  like  it? 

What  are  they  going  to  do  about  it,  whether  they  like  it  or  not? 
The  boys  are  comfng,  ten  hundred  strong. 
The  whole  State  of  Mississippi  is  interested  in  the  election. 
It  shall  be  a  Democratic  victory." 

Mr.  INGALLS:  They  were  all  there,  Mr.  President.  Here 
is  the  way  it  was  done;  here  is  the  way  an  election  was  held 
in  one  of  the  sovereign  States  of  this  Union  three  weeks  ago. 
This  correspondent  says: 

"It  was  the  most  outrageous  thing  I  ever  saw.  All  the  toughs,  mur 
derers,  etc.,  in  the  State  were  here  with  their  Winchester  rifles,  and  took 
possession  of  the  city.  The  polls  were  in  the  possession  of  an  armed  mob. 
who  would  not  allow  a  negro  to  come  within  one  hundred  yards  of  the 
polls.  The  court-house  was  just  filled  upstairs  and  downstairs  with  them. 
The  Edmonds  House  was  full  of  Winchester  rifles,  two  men  in  each  win 
dow,  with  their  guns  pointing  down  at  the  box 


292  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

"The  other  voting- place  in  the  north  ward  was  at  the  Hook  and  Ladder 
Hall.  Upstairs  is  the  armory  of  the  State  Militia ;  that  was  filled  with  men, 
who  were  ready  at  the  wrord  to  let  them  go.  The  voting  downstairs  was 
done  with  closed  doors,  and  no  one  was  allowed  in  there  except  the  voters, 
and  they  only  one  at  a  time.  They  gave  it  out  that  the  first  man  that 
attempted  to  vote — a  negro — would  be  shot  down." 

And  so  on.  I  have  another  letter  from  a  gentleman, 
known,  perhaps,  to  many  members  of  this  body,  from  the  same 
city,  dated  on  the  9th  of  January,  fourteen  days  ago — a  United 
States  officer,  the  register  of  a  land  office — and  he  says : 

"It  was  the  worst  and  most  open  defiance  of  law  I  ever  saw.  'Jim' 
Liddell  was  here  with  his  crowd  of  'Swamp  Angels'  (for  this  badge  was  worn 
by  them  all — a  green  silk  ribbon  with  'Swamp  Angel'  on  it).  They  were 
the  same  men  who  killed  the  negroes  at  Carrollton's.  Cattle  George, 
Senator  George's  son,  was  Liddell's  lieutenant,  and  another  younger  son  of 
George's  was  here  in  the  party  with  his  Winchester,  Yazoo,  Madison, 
Rankin,  and  all  were  here,  armed  to  the  teeth.  Now,  I  wish  to  make  this 
point  clear:  they  wore  badges  with  'White  Supremacy'  on  them.  The 
same  magic  words  headed  their  hand-bills  and  appeals  for  outside  aid. 
Yet  everyone  in  Jackson  knew  that  the  registration  closed  with  240  major 
ity  of  white  voters  on  the  lists.  Now,  where  was  the  fear  of  'nigger'  rule 
this  time?  It  was  Republican  rule  they  will  not  submit  to." 

And  more  to  the  same  effect.  Is  it  any  wonder,  Mr.  Pres 
ident,  that  Democrats  become  alarmed  at  this  condition  of 
affairs?  I  have  a  published  interview  here  with  a  gentleman 
described  as  Hon.  Frank  Burkitt.  He  is  alleged  to  be  a  Dem 
ocrat.  The  interview  appeared  in  the  Memphis  (Tennessee) 
Commercial.  It  is  dated  Jackson,  Mississippi,  January  10,  thir 
teen  days  ago,  and  he  says : 

"In  this  State  there  are  two  factions  of  the  Democratic  party,  equally 
honest." 

That  is  a  very  valuable  admission. 

'One  thinks  it  a  dangerous  experiment  to  hold  a  constitutional  con 
vention;  the  other  thinks  that  it  is  the  only  salvation  for  Mississippi.  In 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  293 

my  judgment,  Mississippi  is  to-day  standing  between  Winchester  rifles  on 

the  one  hand  and  Federal  interference  on  the  other. 

************ 
"In  1873  the  Democratic  party  of  the  United  States  denounced  Grant's 

administration   for  maintaining  bayonets  at  the  polls,  and  the  agitation 

of  this  question  created  a  revolution  in  politics  throughout  the  United 

States. 

***  ********* 

"This  gave  unquestioned  proof  that  the  American  people  were  opposed 
to  military  interference.  I  regret  to  say — " 

he  continues,  this  candid  Democrat — 

"I  regret  to  say  that  in  Mississippi  many  of  our  elections,  or  so-called  elec 
tions,  are  dominated  by  military  interference  to  a  greater  extent  than  any 
ever  perpetrated  under  General  Grant's  administration. 

"The  election  at  Jackson  on  Monday  last  gives  evidence  to  every  con 
servative  Democrat  in  Mississippi  that  something  must  be  done  to  prevent 
irresponsible  men  from  exercising  the  controlling  influence  in  our  elections. 
And  if  such  a  system  is  to  continue,  Federal  interference  could  not  be  much 
worse.  If  the  Republican  party  of  the  North  have  the  courage  of  the  men 
who  invaded  the  South  in  1861  and  1865,  they  will  not  much  longer  toler 
ate  it,  and  Federal  interference,  with  all  its  horrors,  will  be  again  upon  us. 
The  main  object  to  be  attained  by  a  constitutional  convention  is  white 
supremacy  by  legal  and  constitutional  methods,  thereby  superseding  the 
shot-gun  policy." 

Mr.  President,  it  needs  no  further  proof  of  the  statement 
that  there  is  evidence  controlling  and  overwhelming,  from 
quarters  not  friendly  to  the  party  that  I  represent,  that  there 
is  a  deliberate  purpose  on  the  part  of  the  whites  of  the  South 
to  eliminate  absolutely  the  colored  vote  as  a  controlling  or 
resisting  factor  in  their  political  problem  and  situation.  The 
pretexts  for  this  course  are  many,  but  they  all  rest  upon  the 
assumption  of  the  inferiority  of  the  colored  race,  and  of  the 
dangers  to  Anglo-Saxon  civilization  from  what  they  are 
pleased  to  call  negro  supremacy. 

But,  Mr.  President,  I  confess  with  humiliation  that  to 
this  nullification  of  the  Constitution,  to  this  abrogation  of  the 


294  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

social  compact,  to  this  breach  of  plighted  faith,  this  violation 
of  the  natural  rights  of  man,  the  people  of  the  North  have 
apparently  consented.  The  Electoral  College,  the  Senate, 
the  House  of  Representatives,  the  domestic  and  foreign  policy 
of  this  Nation,  the  debt,  the  revenue,  the  currency,  all  have 
been  affected,  and  injuriously  affected,  by  corrupt  and  fabri 
cated  majorities,  without  formal  protest  or  organized  resist 
ance  on  the  part  of  the  North.  Timon  of  Athens  says : 

"'Tis  not  enough  to  help  the  feeble  up, 
But  to  support  him  after." 

Until  1877  the  unstable  fabric  erected  by  the  architects 
of  reconstruction  was  upheld  by  the  military  authority  of  the 
United  States,  and  when  this  was  withdrawn,  the  incongruous 
edifice  toppled  headlong  and  vanished  away  like  the  baseless 
fabric  of  a  vision.  It  disappeared  in  cruel  and  ferocious  con 
vulsions,  which  form  one  of  the  most  shameful  and  shocking 
of  all  the  bloody  tragedies  of  history.  The  attempt  to  reor 
ganize  society  upon  the  basis  of  numbers  failed.  Education, 
wealth,  political  experience,  land-ownership  in  the  South,  all 
conspired  against  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  of  the  United 
States;  and  they  emerged  from  that  dreadful  conflict  in  full 
possession  of  all  the  powers  of  the  States,  and  no  serious  effort 
has  been  made  to  deprive  them  of  their  guilty  acquisition. 
Casual  and  temporary  efforts  to  pass  force  bills,  civil  rights 
bills,  national  election  laws,  have  been  made,  but  without 
avail.  Practically — I  say  it  with  shame  and  remorse — prac 
tically,  the  negroes  have  been  abandoned  to  their  fate.  In  the 
catalogue  they  go  for  men,  but  the  word  of  promise  that  was 
given  them  by  the  North  has  not  been  kept  either  to  their  ear 
or  to  their  hope. 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  295 

There  are  undoubtedly  some  thoughtful  men  in  the  South 
who  perceive  the  gravity  of  the  situation,  who  apprehend 
coming  events,  and  would  willingly  relinquish  the  increment 
of  representation  in  the  Electoral  College,  in  the  Senate,  and 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  gained  by  emancipation  and 
enfranchisement,  if  the  States  could  be  permitted  to  impose 
the  race  condition  upon  suffrage.  But  this  is  impossible.  It 
would  shock  the  conscience  of  mankind.  "The  gods  them 
selves  cannot  recall  their  gifts."  Educational  and  property 
qualifications  are  competent  and  constitutional,  but  this  would 
only  retard  and  defer  the  crisis  that  is  inevitable.  It  may  be 
postponed  for  a  generation,  or  it  may  be  precipitated  at  the 
next  Presidential  election;  but  I  warn  those  who  are  perpe 
trating  these  wrongs  upon  the  suffrage  that  the  North,  the 
West,  and  the  Northwest  will  not  consent  to  have  their  indus 
tries,  their  institutions,  their  wealth,  their  manufactures,  and 
their  civilization  changed,  modified,  or  destroyed  by  an  Exec 
utive  and  by  Congressional  majorities  resting  upon  deliberate 
and  habitual  suppression  of  the  colored  vote,  or  any  other  vote, 
by  force  or  by  fraud.  The  instinct  of  self-preservation  will 
forbid  it. 

The  date  when  patience  will  cease  cannot  be  predicted, 
but  though  the  precise  time  cannot  be  foretold,  it  will  come; 
and  that  it  will  come  in  peace  or  in  blood  is  the  inexorable 
decree  of  destiny.  The  same  passions  that  resented  colonial 
dependence,  that  substituted  the  Union  for  the  confederation, 
that  have  overthrown  State  sovereignty,  slavery,  and  every 
other  obstacle  in  the  path  of  liberty,  justice,  and  nationality, 
may  slumber,  but  they  are  not  dead.  They  have  acquired 
greater  strength  with  their  exercise  at  every  stage  of  our 
growth  and  progress.  The  compromises  of  politicians  seeking 


296  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

for  place  and  power,  the  shifts  of  traders  wanting  gain,  the 
cowardice  of  the  timid,  who  desire  peace  at  the  sacrifice  of 
honor,  will  not  prevail.  Sooner  or  later  they  will  shrivel  and 
be  consumed  away  in  some  sudden  blaze  like  that  which  flashed 
and  flamed  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific  when  John  Brown 
at  Harper's  Ferry  fired  the  gun  whose  reverberations  died 
away  at  Appomattox.  [Applause.] 

Mr.  President,  among  the  preliminary  incidents  that  will 
hasten  this  issue,  if  the  present  state  of  affairs  continues,  armed 
collisions  between  the  races  in  the  South  are  inevitable.  They 
can  be  averted  only  by  justice  and  by  forbearance;  but  these 
qualities  are  not  likely  from  present  indications  to  be  exhibited. 
There  is  nothing  to  indicate  that  in  State,  municipal,  or  local 
affairs  the  rights  of  majorities,  if  they  happen  to  be  black,  will 
be  recognized ;  and  here  the  Nation  has  no  power  to  interfere. 

Ultimately  the  colored  race  will  everywhere  be  strong 
enough  to  resist  violence,  and  they  will  be  intelligent  enough 
to  resent  fraud.  Educated  to  the  consciousness  of  power, 
they  will  insist  upon  its  exercise.  They  will  neither  submit  to 
injustice  nor  consent  to  the  denial  of  their  political  rights. 
With  knowledge,  wealth,  and  the  irresistible  stimulus  and  con 
tagion  of  liberty  will  come  self-control  and  leadership  that  will 
render  the  suppression  of  their  suffrage  impossible,  except  by 
the  national  will  or  by  revolution. 

The  South,  Mr.  President,  is  standing  upon  a  volcano. 
The  South  is  sitting  on  a  safety-valve.  They  are  breeding 
innumerable  John  Browns  and  Nat.  Turners.  Already  mut- 
terings  of  discontent  by  hostile  organizations  are  heard.  The 
use  of  the  torch  and  the  dagger  is  advised.  I  deplore  it,  but 
as  God  is  my  judge,  I  say  that  no  other  people  on  the  face  of 
this  earth  have  ever  submitted  to  the  wrongs,  the  injustice, 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  297 

which  have  been  for  twenty-five  years  heaped  upon  the  colored 
men  of  the  South  without  revolution  and  blood.  [Applause 
in  the  galleries.] 

The  VICE- PRESIDENT:  The  Chair  takes  this  occasion  to 
remind  the  occupants  of  the  galleries  that  they  are  here  by  the 
courtesy  of  the  Senate,  and  any  manifestations  of  approbation 
or  disapprobation  are  violations  of  the  rules  of  the  Senate. 
Order  must  be  preserved. 

Mr.  INGALLS:  And  yet,  Mr.  President,  in  the  face  of  this 
issue,  the  Senator  from  South  Carolina  who  sits  farthest  from 
me  [Mr.  Hampton]  deliberately  advocates  the  policy  of  exter 
mination  of  the  blacks.  I  ask  the  Chief  Clerk  to  read  the 
extract  which  I  send  to  the  desk. 

The  Chief  Clerk  read  as  follows : 

"Senator  Hampton's  position,  like  that  of  a  good  many  other  people, 
is  that  no  country  was  ever  made  or  can  be  made  for  the  occupation  of  two 
races  distinct  from  each  other  in  color  and  habits  and  tradition.  Apply 
ing  this  rule  to  the  Southern  States,  he  finds  that  the  condition  inexorably 
indicates  one  of  three  results. 

"One  of  the  two  races  must  migrate,  one  of  the  two  must  be  extermin 
ated,  or  the  two  must  amalgamate.  Increase  of  population,  wealth,  and 
education  will  hasten  one  of  these  results  in  proportion  as  we  are  success 
ful.  The  richer  and  more  highly  educated  the  negro  becomes,  the  higher 
his  ambition  will  be,  and  the  more  bitterly  will  he  resent  and  resist  being 
held  in  a  menial  or  inferior  position.  No  enmity  is  involved  in  this  con 
sideration  of  plain  facts.  His  warmest  friends  must  come  to  understand 
that  he  cannot  have  a  fair  opportunity  to  develop  what  capacity  he  may 
have  while  in  competition  with  another  race,  holding  itself  superior  to  him, 
in  possession  of  most  of  the  property,  in  control  of  the  resources,  and  with 
a  tremendous  lead  in  intelligence  and  culture  to  enforce  its  claim.  There 
is  abundant  soil  in  Central  and  South  America  and  Mexico,  and  the  United 
States  Government  can  command  money  enough  to  buy  a  continent  if  it 
likes.  The  homesteads  now  offered  other  settlers  on  our  public  lands, 
together  with  free  transportation  and  other  help,  would  carry  negroes  from 
the  South  in  swarms.  They  could  organize  their  own  States  and  come 
into  the  Union  just  as  other  people  do,  having  their  representatives  in 
Congress  and  the  Electoral  College.  There  would  be  no  danger  that  all  of 


298  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

them  would  leave  the  South,  but  enough  would  leave  to  relieve  the  situa- 
ttion  of  its  pressures  and  dangers." 

Mr.  INGALLS:  That  the  process  of  extermination,  or  the 
solution  of  extermination,  has  already  been  inaugurated  and 
is  going  on,  I  ask  the  Chief  Clerk  to  read  an  extract  from  a 
newspaper  printed  in  Brandon,  Mississippi,  of  the  issue  of  last 
week. 

The  Chief  Clerk  read  as  follows  : 

"Negro  immigration  threatens  to  overwhelm  Mississippi,  and  if  we 
didn't  have  such  an  unbounded  faith  in  our  ability  to  cope  with  them,  it 
would  make  us  feel  serious.  The  Avalanclie  and  other  great  dailies  are  pre 
dicting  great  disasters  for  the  old  Magnolia  State,  but  we'll  wager  our  old 
clothes  that  Mississippi  will  get  there  every  time.  There  were  one  hun 
dred  and  fifty-five  negroes  lynched  in  this  State  last  year  This  is  signifi 
cant,  and  should  have  a  restraining  influence  over  the  coons." 

Mr.  INGALLS:  One  hundred  and  fifty-five  negroes  lynched, 
their  lives  taken  without  authority  of  law,  in  Mississippi  last 
year! 

Mr.  President,  the  black  man  is  not  a  coward.  The  black 
man  came  here,  as  I  said  before,  as  a  prisoner  of  war,  captured 
in  battle.  Two  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  of  them  enlisted 
in  the  military  service  of  the  United  States  to  preserve  the 
integrity  of  the  Constitution  that  doomed  them  to  degrada 
tion  and  to  defend  the  flag  that  was  the  symbol  and  the 
emblem  of  their  dishonor.  It  is  said  that  the  Athenians 
erected  a  statue  to  ^Esop,  who  was  born  a  slave  ;  or,  as  Phae- 
drus  phrases  it  : 


i  ingenio  statuam  posuere  Attici, 
Servumque  collocariint  aeterna  in  basi." 
"They  placed  the  slave  upon  an  eternal  pedestal." 

Sir,  for  what  the  enfranchised  slaves  did  for  the  cause  of 
constitutional   liberty   in   this   country   the   American   people 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  299 

should  imitate  the  Athenians  and  place  the  slave  upon  an  eter 
nal  pedestal.  Their  conduct  has  been  beyond  all  praise. 
They  have  been  patient,  they  have  been  docile,  they  have  been 
loyal  to  their  masters  and  to  the  country,  and  to  those  with 
whom  they  are  associated ;  but,  as  I  said  before,  no  other  peo 
ple  ever  endured  patiently  such  injustice  and  wrong.  Des 
potism  makes  nihilists;  tyranny  makes  socialists  and  com 
munists;  injustice  is  the  great  manufacturer  of  dynamite. 
The  thief  robs  himself;  the  adulterer  pollutes  himself;  the 
murderer  inflicts  a  deeper  wound  upon  himself  than  that  which 
slays  his  victim.  The  South  in  imposing  chains  upon  the  Afri 
cans  placed  heavier  manacles  upon  themselves  than  those 
which  bound  the  hapless  slave ;  and  those  who  are  now  denying 
to  American  citizens  the  prerogatives  of  freedom  should  remem 
ber  that  behind  them,  silent  and  tardy  it  may  be,  but  inexor 
able  and  relentless,  stalks  with  uplifted  blade  the  menacing 
specter  of  vengeance  and  of  retribution. 

Sir,  the  South  is  in  greater  danger  than  the  enfranchised 
slave  if  there  is  to  be  the  policy  of  extermination;  but  if  my 
voice  can  reach  that  proscribed  and  unfortunate  class,  I  appeal 
to  them  to  continue  as  they  have  begun,  to  endure  to  the  end, 
and  thus  to  commend  themselves  to  the  favorable  judgment  of 
mankind,  and  to  rely  for  their  safety  upon  the  ultimate  appeal 
to  the  conscience  of  the  human  race. 

This  is  one  of  the  great  dangers,  Mr.  President.  Ordina 
rily  it  might  be  assumed  that  if  the  supremacy  of  the  white 
race  in  the  South  was  threatened  by  armed  negro  majorities, 
fighting  for  the  rights  of  which  they  are  deprived,  the  coalition 
of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  on  this  continent  would  be  instanta 
neous.  But  unfortunately,  sir,  the  reconciliation  of  the  sec 
tions  is  not  cordis.1  nor  complete.  There  is  no  affection  between 


300  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  conquerors  and  the  conquered.  The  South  has  not  for 
given  the  North  for  its  victory,  for  its  prosperity,  for  its  superi 
ority.  If  it  can  control  the  Government  and  its  patronage 
and  hold  the  purse  and  the  sword,  it  is  patriotic.  It  is  opposed 
to  pensions,  to  protection,  to  national  authority,  because  these 
are  the  policies  of  those  who  thwarted  the  effort  to  destroy  the 
Union.  It  re-enforces  the  cowardly  and  degraded  elements 
in  the  North  that  sympathized  with  their  treason. 

The  South,  sir,  has  not  accepted  the  amendments  of  the 
Constitution  in  good  faith.  It  habitually  violates  the  treaty 
made  with  the  North,  openly  proclaims  a  purpose  to  disregard 
the  pledge  under  which  they  escaped  confiscation  and  out 
lawry.  They  have  their  own  heroes,  their  own  anniversaries. 
They  celebrate  their  own  victories.  They  rear  their  monu 
ments  to  civil  and  military  leaders  whose  claim  to  glory  is  that 
they  fell  for  slavery  and  anarchy.  They  exalt  their  leaders 
above  those  of  the  Union  cause,  and  continually  cry  that  they 
were  right  and  will  ultimately  prevail. 

Mr.  President,  until  these  conditions  are  permanently 
changed,  however  formidable  and  perilous  may  be  the  exigen 
cies  confronting  the  South  from  the  numerical  strength  of  the 
black  race,  assistance  and  cooperation  cannot  be  anticipated 
from  the  North;  they  must  tread  "the  wine-press  alone,"  and 
they  will  eventually  discover  the  truth  of  the  instruction  of 
history,  that  nothing  is  so  unprofitable  as  injustice,  and  that 
God  is  an  unrelenting  creditor. 

Mr.  President,  I  can  appreciate  and  understand  the  rever 
ence  and  the  honor  in  which  the  memory  of  Jefferson  Davis  is 
held  by  the  Southern  people.  I  honor  them  for  their  con 
stancy.  Ideas  are  immortal ;  their  vitality  is  inextinguishable ; 
they  can  never  be  annihilated;  force  cannot  destroy  them. 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  301 

No  man  is  ever  convinced  by  being  overpowered.  Ideas  may 
be  subordinated,  their  expression  may  be  suppressed,  but  they 
never  die.  War  does  not  change  the  opinions  either  of  the 
victors  or  of  the  conquered.  It  proves  nothing  except  which 
of  the  combatants  had  the  most  endurance,  the  deepest  purse, 
and  the  sharpest  sword.  Therefore,  when  Southern  Legisla 
tures,  and  conventions,  and  a  Democratic  Congress  declare 
by  resolution  that  the  issues  of  slavery,  secession,  and  State 
sovereignty  were  settled  by  the  war,  but  omit  to  repudiate 
the  doctrines  as  unconstitutional  and  untenable,  they  leave 
the  impression  of  disingenuousness  and  insincerity.  Jefferson 
Davis  possessed  none  of  the  "thrift  that  follows  fawning." 
He  never  "crooked  the  pregnant  hinges  of  his  knee."  Obdu 
rate,  implacable,  and  relentless  to  the  last,  he  remained  the 
immovable  type,  exponent,  and  representative  of  those  ideas 
for  which  he  staked  all  and  lost  all. 

It  is,  sir,  a  striking  illustration  of  the  irony  of  fate  that, 
while  Lincoln  in  the  hour  of  victory  fell  by  the  bullet  of  an 
assassin,  the  victim  of  the  subsiding  passions  of  the  war,  his 
great  antagonist  survived  for  a  quarter  of  a  century  and  died 
peacefully  in  honor  and  prosperity. 

Sir,  the  Northern  press,  with  singular  unanimity,  referred 
to  him  in  terms  of  respect  and  honor,  and  not  with  malevo 
lence  or  hatred.  He  had  steadfastly  refused  the  amnesty 
which  would  readily  have  been  granted,  and  declined  to  become 
a  citizen  of  the  United  States.  He  had  devoted  his  time  and 
strength  to  the  explanation  and  justification  of  the  purposes 
of  the  South  in  its  effort  to  destroy  the  Union.  In  response  to 
the  announcement  of  his  death,  forwarded  by  the  Mayor  of 
New  Orleans,  the  Secretary  of  War  explained  in  mild  and 
deferential  terms  the  reason  why  it  was  thought  best  to  take 


302  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

no  public  notice  of  his  decease  and  to  withhold  the  usual  dem 
onstrations  for  one  who  had  occupied  a  place  in  the  cabinet  of 
a  President  of  the  United  States. 

There  is  in  northern  Mississippi  a  town  by  the  name  of 
Aberdeen.  It  is  a  seat  of  justice,  I  believe  also  of  learning, 
and  a  place  of  considerable  consequence.  On  the  occasion  of 
the  death  of  Jefferson  Davis,  Aberdeen  was  shrouded  in  mourn 
ing;  the  United  States  Court-house  was  draped;  the  national 
flag,  that  the  Secretary  of  War  had  declined  to  lower,  was  at 
half-mast  on  the  Government  building;  the  Tenebrae  were 
chanted  in  the  churches,  and  the  entire  community  gave  indi 
cations,  as  they  had  a  right  to  do,  of  the  profoundest  solemnity 
and  woe.  As  an  additional  method  of  expressing  their  grief, 
they  constructed  an  effigy,  which  was  suspended  upon  a  cable 
across  the  principal  street  of  the  town,  and  labeled  it  "RED. 
PROCTOR,  THE  TRAITOR!" — "Red,"  I  suppose,  being  the  con 
traction  for  Redfield,  which  is,  I  believe,  the  first  name  of  the 
Secretary  of  \Yar — and  there  it  swung  as  an  indication  of  the 
affliction  of  the  citizens  of  Aberdeen  at  the  death  of  Jefferson 
Davis.  [Laughter.] 

Into  the  town  of  Aberdeen  a  few  days  before  had  come  a 
journeyman  tinner  by  the  name  of  Fanz.  He  was  a  citizen  of 
Indiana.  His  politics  were  unknown.  He  was  white.  He 
was  twenty-five  years  of  age,  of  diminutive  stature,  of  inoffen 
sive  demeanor,  and  of  conciliatory  address.  In  the  process  of 
his  labor  as  a  tinner,  to  cover  the  roof  of  the  unfinished  build 
ing,  to  one  of  the  rafters  of  which  was  attached  the  end  of  the 
cable  that' supported  the  effigy  of  "RED.  PROCTOR,  THE  TRAI 
TOR,"  he  was  compelled  to  move  the  rope,  in  order  to  give  him 
space  to  continue  his  work. 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  303 

Proving  too  heavy  for  him,  it  slipped  from  his  hands  and 
fell  into  the  street.  He  protested  that  he  had  no  intention  of 
giving  offense  to  the  citizens  of  Aberdeen.  As  he  descended 
to  go  to  his  dinner  he  was  intercepted  by  a  gentlemanly  citizen 
of  Aberdeen  by  the  name  of  McDonald,  who  had  in  his  hand 
one  of  the  largest-sized  whalebone  coach-whips,  and,  confront 
ing  him,  told  him  that  for  the  offense  he  had  committed  he  had 
"to  take  a  whipping  or  something  worse."  Fanz  endeavored 
to  escape.  He  was  unarmed.  H£  was  not  a  pugilist,  although 
pugilists  have  been  in  Mississippi.  [Laughter.]  McDonald, 
being  accompanied  by  his  friends,  prevented  the  escape  of 
Fanz,  and  proceeded  to  inflict  upon  him  a  castigation,  which, 
one  observer  said,  extended  to  at  least  two  hundred  lashes. 
The  whip  was  almost  entirely  destroyed.  Fanz's  face  was  cut 
and  bleeding.  His  sight  was  nearly  destroyed.  He  was  mu 
tilated  and  crippled,  and  fleeing  to  his  boarding-house  after 
the  castigation  had  been  completed,  he  was  waited  upon  that 
evening  by  a  committee  of  the  citizens  of  Aberdeen,  who  pur 
chased  a  ticket,  placed  him  upon  the  train,  and  sent  him  away, 
and  he  has  since  been  heard  of  no  more. 

It  is  just  to  say  that  many  of  the  citizens  of  Aberdeen  said 
it  was  a  great  outrage.  He  was  punished — McDonald  was. 
He  was  arrested  and  taken  before  the  police  court  and  fined 
$30;  and  thereupon  the  citizens,  who  had  walked  under  the 
effigy  and  who  beheld  the  castigation  without  protest,  started 
a  subscription  paper  and  raised  $60  to  cover  the  fine,  the 
expense  of  the  effigy,  and  the  whip  with  which  the  castigation 
was  inflicted. 

Mr.  President,  if  an  outrage  like  that  had  been  inflicted 
upon  an  American  citizen  in  England,  in  France,  in  Spain, 
anywhere  upon  the  face  of  this  earth,  and  there  had  not  been 


304  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

instantaneous  disavowal  and  reparation,  a  million  men  would 
have  sprung  to  arms  to  avenge  the  wrong. 

"The  armaments  that  thunder-strike  the  walls  of  rock-built  cities. 
Bidding  nations  quake  and  monarchs  tremble  in  their  capitals," 

would  have  gone  swiftly  forming  in  the  ranks  of  war.  He  was 
a  citizen  of  Indiana,  the  outrage  was  inflicted  in  Mississippi, 
and  the  perpetrators  go  unwhipped  of  justice. 

I  said,  Mr.  President,  that  I  was  not  in  favor  of  the  Afri 
canization  of  this  continent  or  any  part  of  it.  But  if  the  meth 
ods  in  the  Chalmers  campaign,  in  the  Jackson  campaign,  and 
the  proceedings  at  Aberdeen  are  illustrations  of  the  temper, 
spirit,  and  purposes  of  the  people  of  the  State  of  Mississippi 
towards  the  Government  of  the  United  States  and  its  citizens, 
I  would  a  thousand-fold  prefer  that  every  rood  of  that  State 
should  be  occupied  by  an  African  rather  than  by  those  who  at 
present  inhabit  it. 

I  refer  once  more,  Mr.  President,  and  in  conclusion,  to  the 
utterances  of  the  dead  orator  who,  inquiring  about  the  solu 
tions  of  this  great  problem,  said: 

"There  can  be  but  one  answer.  It  is  the  very  problem  we  are  now  to 
consider.  The  key  that  opens  that  problem  will  unlock  to  the  world  the 
fairest  half  of  this  Republic,  and  free  the  halted  feet  of  thousands  whose 
eyes  are  already  kindling  with  its  beauty.  Better  than  this,  it  will  open 
the  hearts  of  brothers  for  thirty  years  estranged,  and  clasp  in  lasting  com 
radeship  a  million  hands  now  withheld  in  doubt  Nothing,  sir,  but  this 
problem,  and  the  suspicions  it  breeds,  hinders  a  clear  understanding  and  a 
perfect  union." 

What  are  these  "suspicions  bred  by  the  race  problem" 
which  hinder  a  clear  understanding  and  perfect  union,  referred 
to  by  Grady  in  his  Boston  speech?  I  will  tell  you,  sir,  what 
they  are,  as  I  understand  it.  One  suspicion  is  that  this  cry 


/  FIAT  JUSTITIA.  305 

of  race  antagonism  applies  only  to  the  negro  when  he  is  free. 
Grady  says: 

"The  love  we  feel  for  that  race  you  cannot  measure  nor  comprehend 
As  I  attest  it  here,  the  spirit  of  my  old  black  mammy,  from  her  home  up 
there,  looks  down  on  me  to  bless,  and  through  the  tumult  of  this  night  steals 
the  sweet  music  of  her  croonings.  as  thirty  years  ago  she  held  me  in  her 
black  arms  and  led  me  smiling  into  sleep." 

Such  is  the  concurrent  testimony  of  all  who  have  spoken 
upon  the  subject,  that  this  cry  of  race  antagonism  and  race 
repugnance  did  not  apply  to  the  black  race  when  they  were 
slaves,  and  there  is  a  suspicion  that  if  the  blacks  had  remained 
slaves,  there  would  have  been  no  proposition  either  for  separa 
tion,  colonization,  or  extermination. 

There  is  a  suspicion  further  than  this,  Mr.  President,  and 
that  is  that  race  antagonism  and  race  repugnance  apply  only 
to  the  colored  man  in  the  South  when  he  desires  to  vote  a 
Republican  ticket.  If  they  were  all  Democrats,  the  race  ques 
tion  would  disappear. 

There  is  a  further  suspicion,  Mr.  President,  that  the  ques 
tion  whether  these  two  races  can  subsist  on  terms  of  political 
equality  under  our  system  of  government  has  never  been  fairly 
tried.  If  the  South  desire  to  be  rid  of  the  negro,  they  can 
readily  accomplish  that  result  by  refusing  to  employ  him;  and 
yet  it  is  admitted  by  those  who  are  competent  to  know  that 
they  paid  him  in  wages  this  last  year  not  less  than  one  hundred 
million  dollars,  and  that  he  contributed,  and  indispensably 
contributed,  to  the  production  of  crops  that  were  worth  one 
thousand  million  dollars  more,  and  that  besides  that,  in  the 
State  of  Georgia  alone,  the  black  race  has  accumulated  prop 
erty,  real  estate,  that  is  worth  not  less  than  twenty  million 
dollars. 


306  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Sir,  the  black  race  is  capable  of  civilization.  Notwith 
standing  the  obstacles  and  discouragements,  the  failures  and 
disappointments,  justice  requires  the  admission  that  in  the 
dark  and  tragic  interval  of  its  transition  period  it  has  made 
marked  and  substantial  progress,  greater,  far  greater,  than 
could  have  been  reasonably  expected.  If  the  degenerate 
proclivities  engendered  by  centuries  of  oppression  and  ignor 
ance  have  not  been  extirpated,  they  have  at  least  been  sur 
prisingly  modified;  and  while  there  is  nothing  in  his  origin 
and  in  his  history  to  justify  the  expectation  that  the  African 
can  ever  successfully  compete  with  the  Anglo-Saxon  in  gov 
ernment,  in  art,  in  conquest,  or  practical  affairs,  neither  is 
there  anything  to  indicate  that  he  is  not  susceptible  of  high 
civilization. 

Habituated  to  subordination  for  centuries,  self-reliance, 
pride  of  race,  authority,  and  the  respect  of  nations  can  only 
come,  if  at  all,  after  the  labors,  the  struggles,  and  the  disci 
pline  of  centuries.  It  would  be  obviously  unjust  to  measure 
the  advance  of  the  colored  race  by  comparison  with  our  own. 
Their  conditions  should  be  contrasted  with  that  of  their  con 
temporaries  of  the  same  ancestry  in  the  tropical  jungles  of 
Africa,  where  they  still  subsist  in  indescribable  degradation 
and  inexhaustible  fecundity.  Measured  by  this  standard, 
they  have  displayed  an  extraordinary  aptitude  for  improve 
ment.  Under  the  harsh  and  repressive  limitations  of  slavery 
they  ceased  to  be  barbarians.  In  freedom  they  have  adopted 
with  alacrity  the  ideas  of  home,  the  family,  obedience  to  law, 
and  the  institutions  of  government.  Bloody  and  superstitious 
fetichism  and  idolatry  have  been  succeeded  by  faith  in  immor 
tality  and  belief  in  God,  the  sublimest  conceptions  that  can 
be  entertained  bv  the  soul  of  man.  Their  conduct  has  b°en 


FIAT  JUSTITIA.  307 

characterized  by  eagerness  for  education,  by  a  desire  for  the 
accumulation  of  property,  and  by  patient  fortitude  in  adver 
sity.  They  are  ignorant,  and  they  hunger  for  knowledge. 
They  are  wretched,  and  they  thirst  for  happiness. 

Since  1862  there  has  been  given  for  the  education  of  the 
enfranchised  slaves,  through  the  American  Missionary  Soci 
ety,  $10,000,000;  through  the  Methodist  Society,  $2,250,000; 
through  the  Baptist  Society,  $2,000,000;  through  the  Presby 
terian  Society,  $1,600,000;  and  not  less  than  $1,000,000  from 
other  sources;  in  all  about  $17,000,000  from  the  North.  The 
Catholics  also  have  interested  themselves  in  the  problem. 
Bishop  Vaughn,  of  Salford,  in  Lancastershire,  England,  has 
formed  an  organization  especially  directed  toward  the  improve 
ment  of  the  colored  people  of  the  South,  and  at  the  Plenary 
Council  of  the  Catholic  Church,  held  at  Baltimore  three  years 
ago,  it  was  decided  to  establish  a  seminary,  where  the  bishop 
has  now  forty  clergymen  educating  to  assist  in  evangelizing 
and  training  them  in  all  the  functions  and  duties'  of  good 
citizenship. 

From  the  platform  adopted  at  the  congress  of  the  Church 
held  in  Baltimore  a  few  weeks  since,  the  following  paragraphs 
will  show  that  the  Catholic  laity  are  in  accord  with  the  clergy 
and  at  work  in  endeavoring  to  solve  the  race  problem : 

"We  pledge  ourselves  to  cooperate  with  the  clergy  in  discussing  and  in 
solving  those  great  economic  and  social  questions  which  affect  the  inter 
ests  and  well-being  of  the  Church,  the  country,  and  society  at  large. 

' '  That  the  amelioration  and  promotion  of  the  physical  and  moral  cult 
ure  of  the  negro  race  is  a  subject  of  the  utmost  concern,  and  we  pledge  our 
selves  to  assist  our  clergy  in  all  wavs  tending  to  effect  any  improvement 
in  their  condition." 

Mr.  President,  four  solutions  of  the  race  problem  are  pro 
posed  :  first,  amalgamation ;  second,  extermination ;  third,  sep_ 


308  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

aration;  fourth,  disfranchisement.  But,  sir,  there  is  a  fifth, 
the  universal  solvent  of  all  human  difficulties,  that  never  has 
been  proposed  and  never  has  been  tried,  and  that  is  the 
solution  of  justice — justice,  for  which  every  place  should  be  a 
temple  and  all  seasons  summer. 

I  appeal  to  the  South  to  try  the  experiment  of  justice. 
Stack  your  guns,  open  your  ballot-boxes,  register  your  voters, 
black  and  white ;  and  if,  after  the  experiment  has  been  fairly 
and  honestly  tried,  it  appears  that  the  African  race  is  incapable 
of  civilization,  if  it  appears  that  the  complexion  burned  upon 
him  by  a  tropic  sun  is  incompatible  with  freedom,  I  pledge 
myself  to  consult  with  you  about  some  measure  of  solving  the 
race  problem;  but  until  then  nothing  can  be  done. 

The  citizenship  of  the  negro  must  be  absolutely  recognized. 
His  right  to  vote  must  be  admitted,  and  the  ballots  that  he 
casts  must  be  honestly  counted.  These  are  the  essential  pre 
liminaries,  the  indispensable  conditions  precedent  to  any  con 
sideration  of  the  ulterior  and  fundamental  questions  of  race 
supremacy  or  of  race  equality  in  the  United  States,  North  or 
South.  Those  who  freed  the  slaves  ask  nothing  more ;  they 
will  be  content  with  nothing  less.  The  experiment  must  be 
fairly  tried.  This  is  the  starting-point  and  this  the  goal.  The 
longer  it  is  deferred  the  greater  will  be  the  exasperation  and 
the  more  doubtful  will  be  the  final  result.  [Applause  in  the 
galleries.] 


"THE  IMAGE  AND   SUPERSCRIPTION  OF 

CAESAR." 


(Speech  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  Wednesday,  January  14,  1891*) 

Mr.  President:  Two  portentous  perils  threaten  the  safety, 
if  they  do  not  endanger  the  existence,  of  the  Republic. 

The  first  of  these  is  ignorant,  debased,  degraded,  spurious, 
and  sophisticated  suffrage ;  suffrage  contaminated  by  the  fec 
ulent  sewage  of  decaying  nations;  suffrage  intimidated  and 
suppressed  in  the  South;  suffrage  impure  and  corrupt,  apa 
thetic,  and  indifferent  in  the  great  cities  of  the  North — so  that  it 
is  doubtful  whether  there  has  been  for  half  a  century  a  Presi 
dential  election  in  this  country  that  expressed  the  deliberate 
and  intelligent  judgment  of  the  whole  body  of  the  American 
people. 

In  a  newspaper  interview  a  few  months  ago,  in  which  I 
commented  upon  these  conditions  and  alluded  to  the  efforts 
of  the  bacilli  doctors  of  politics,  the  bacteriologists  of  our  sys 
tem,  who  endeavor  to  cure  the  ills  under  which  we  suffer  by 
their  hypodermic  injections  of  the  lymph  of  independent  non- 
partisanship  and  the  Brown-Sequard  elixir  of  civil  service 
reform,  I  said  that  "the  purification  of  politics"  by  such  meth 
ods  as  this  was  an  "iridescent  dream."  Remembering  the 
cipher  dispatches  of  1877  and  the  attempted  purchase  of  thp 
electoral  votes  of  many  Southern  States  in  that  campaign 
the  forgery  of  the  Morey  letter  in  1881,  by  which  Garfield  lost 

309 


310  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  votes  of  three  States  in  the  North,  and  the  characteriza 
tion  and  portraiture  of  Elaine  and  Cleveland  and  Harrison  by 
their  political  adversaries,  I  added  that  "the  Golden  Rule  and 
the  Decalogue  had  no  place  in  American  political  campaigns." 

It  seems  superfluous  to  explain,  Mr.  President,  that  in 
those  utterances  I  was  not  inculcating  a  doctrine,  but  describ 
ing  a  condition.  My  statement  was  a  statement  of  facts  as  I 
understand  them,  and  not  the  announcement  of  an  article  of 
faith.  But  many  reverend  and  eminent  divines,  many  dis 
interested  editors,  many  ingenuous  orators,  perverted  those 
utterances  into  the  personal  advocacy  of  impurity  in  politics. 

I  do  not  complain,  Mr.  President.  It  was,  as  the  world 
goes,  legitimate  political  warfare;  but  it  was  an  illustration 
of  the  truth  that  there  ought  to  be  purification  in  our  politics, 
and  that  the  Golden  Rule  and  the  Decalogue  ought  to  have  a 
place  in  political  campaigns.  "Do  unto  others  as  ye  would 
that  others  should  do  unto  you"  is  the  supreme  injunction, 
obligatory  upon  all.  "  If  thine  enemy  smite  thee  upon  one 
cheek,  turn  to  him  the  other,"  is  a  sublime  and  lofty  pre 
cept.  But  I  take  this  occasion  to  observe  that  until  it  is  more 
generally  regarded  than  it  has  been  or  appears  likely  to  be  in 
the  immediate  future,  if  my  political  enemy  smites  me  upon 
one  cheek,  instead  of  turning  to  him  the  other,  I  shall  smite 
him  under  the  butt  end  of  his  left  ear  if  I  can.  [Laughter.] 
If  this  be  political  immorality,  I  am  to  be  included  among  the 
unregenerated. 

The  election  bill  that  was  under  consideration  a  few  days 
ago  was  intended  to  deal  with  one  part  of  the  great  evil  to 
which  I  have  alluded,  but  it  was  an  imperfect,  a  partial,  and 
an  incomplete  remedy.  Violence  is  bad;  but  fraud  is  no  bet 
ter;  and  it  is  more  dangerous  because  it  is  more  insidious. 


IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."      311 

Burke  said  in  one  of  those  immortal  orations  that  emptied  the 
House  of  Commons,  but  which  will  be  read  with  admiration  so 
long  as  the  English  tongue  shall  endure,  that  when  the  laws  of 
Great  Britain  were  not  strong  enough  to  protect  the  humblest 
Hindoo  upon  the  shores  of  the  Ganges,  the  nobleman  was  not 
safe  in  his  castle  upon  the  banks  of  the  Thames.  Sir,  that 
lofty  sentence  is  pregnant  with  admonition  for  us.  There  can 
be  no  repose,  there  can  be  no  stable  and  permanent  peace, 
in  this  country  and  under  this  Government,  until  it  is  just  as 
safe  for  the  black  Republican  to  vote  in  Mississippi  as  it  is 
for  the  white  Democrat  to  vote  in  Kansas. 

The  other  evil,  Mr.  President — the  second  to  which  I  ad 
verted  as  threatening  the  safety,  if  it  does  not  endanger  the 
existence,  of  the  Republic — is  the  tyranny  of  combined,  concen 
trated,  centralized,  and  incorporated  capital.  And  the  peo 
ple  are  considering  this  problem  now.  The  conscience  of  the 
Nation  is  shocked  at  the  injustice  of  modern  society.  The 
moral  sentiment  of  mankind  has  been  aroused  at  the  unequal 
distribution  of  wealth,  at  the  unequal  diffusion  of  the  burdens, 
the  benefits,  and  the  privileges  of  society. 

At  the  beginning  of  our  second  century  the  American  peo 
ple  have  become  profoundly  conscious  that  the  ballot  is  not 
the  panacea  for  all  the  evils  that  afflict  humanity;  that  it  has 
not  abolished  poverty  nor  prevented  injustice.  They  have 
discovered  that  political  equality  does  not  result  in  social 
fraternity;  that  under  a  democracy  the  concentration  of 
greater  political  power  in  fewer  hands,  the  accumulation  and 
aggregation  of  greater  amounts  of  wealth  in  individuals,  is 
more  possible  than  under  a  monarchy,  and  that  there  is  a  tyr 
anny  which  is  more  fatal  than  the  tyranny  of  kings. 


312  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

George  Washington,  the  first  President  of  the  Republic,  at 
the  close  of  his  life  in  1799  had  the  largest  private  fortune  in 
the  United  States  of  America.  Much  of  this  came  by  inherit 
ance,  but  the  Father  of  His  Country,  in  addition  to  his  other 
virtues,  shining  and  illustrious,  was  a  very  prudent,  sagacious, 
thrifty,  and  forehanded  man.  He  knew  a  good  thing  when  he 
saw  it  a  great  way  off.  He  had  a  keen  eye  for  the  main  chance. 
As  a  surveyor  in  his  youth,  he  obtained  knowledge  that  enabled 
him  to  make  exceedingly  valuable  locations  upon  the  public 
domain.  The  establishment  of  the  national  capital  in  the 
immediate  vicinity  of  his  patrimonial  possessions  did  not  dim 
inish  their  value.  He  was  a  just  debtor,  but  he  was  an  exact 
if  not  an  exacting  creditor.  And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  when 
he  died,  he  was,  to  use  the  expressive  phraseology  of  the  day, 
the  richest  man  in  the  country. 

At  this  time,  ninety  years  afterward,  it  is  net  without  inter 
est  to  know  that  the  entire  aggregate  and  sum  of  his  earthly 
possessions,  his  estate,  real,  personal,  arid  mixed,  Mount  Ver- 
non  and  his  lands  along  the  Kanawha  and  the  Ohio,  slaves, 
securities,  all  of  his  belongings,  reached  the  sum  total  of  between 
$800,000  and  $900,000.  This  was  less  than  a  century  ago, 
and  it  is  within  bounds  to  say  that  at  this  time  there  are  many 
scores  of  men,  of  estates,  and  of  corporations  in  this  country 
whose  annual  income  exceeded,  and  there  has  been  one  man 
whose  monthly  revenue  since  that  period  exceeded,  the  entire 
accumulations  of  the  wealthiest  citizen  of  the  United  States 
at  the  end  of  the  last  century. 

At  that  period  the  social  condition  of  the  United  States 
was  one  of  practical  equality.  The  statistics  of  the  census 
of  1800  are  incomplete  and  partial,  but  the  population  of 
the  Union  was  about  5,300,000,  and  the  estimated  wealth  of 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       313 

the  country  was  between  $3,000,000,000  and  $4,000,000,000. 
There  was  not  a  millionaire  and  there  was  not  a  tramp  nor  a 
pauper,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  the  country,  except  those  who  had 
been  made  so  by  infirmity,  or  disease,  or  inevitable  calamity. 
A  multitude  of  small  farmers  contentedly  tilled  the  soil. 
Upon  the  coast  a  race  of  fishermen  and  sailors,  owning  the 
craft  that  they  sailed,  wrested  their  subsistence  from  the 
stormy  sea.  Labor  was  the  rule  and  luxury  the  exception. 
The  great  mass  of  the  people  lived  upon  the  products  of  the 
farms  that  they  cultivated.  They  spun  and  wove  and  man 
ufactured  their  clothing  from  flax  and  from  wool.  Com 
merce  and  handicrafts  afforded  honorable  competence.  The 
prayer  of  Agur  was  apparently  realized.  There  was  nei 
ther  poverty  nor  riches.  Wealth  was  uniformly  diffused,  and 
none  was  condemned  io  hopeless  penury  and  dependence. 
Less  than  4  per  cent  of  the  entire  population  lived  in  towns, 
and  there  were  but  fcur  cities  whose  population  exceeded 
10,000  persons.  Westward  to  the  Pacific  lay  the  fertile  sol 
itudes  of  an  unexplored  continent,  its  resources  undeveloped 
and  unsuspected.  The  dreams  of  Utopia  seemed  about  to  be 
fulfilled,  the  wide,  the  universal  diffusion  of  civil,  political, 
and  personal  rights  among  the  great  body  of  the  people,  accom 
panied  by  efficient  and  vigorous  guaranties  for  the  safety  of 
life,  the  protection  of  property,  and  the  preservation  of  liberty. 
Since  that  time,  Mr.  President,  the  growth  in  wealth  and 
numbers  in  this  country  has  had  no  precedent  irr  the  building 
of  nations.  The  genius  of  the  people,  stimulated  to  prodigious 
activity  by  freedom,  by  individualism,  by  universal  education, 
has  subjugated  the  desert  and  abolished  the  frontier.  The 
laboring  capacity  of  every  inhabitant  of  this  planet  has  been 
duplicated  by  machinery.  In  Massachusetts  alone  we  are 


3 14  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

told  that  its  engines  are  equivalent  to  the  labor  of  one  hundred 
million  men.  We  now  perform  one-third  of  the  world's  min 
ing,  one-quarter  of  its  manufacturing,  one-fifth  of  its  fanning, 
and  we  possess  one-sixth  part  of  its  entire  accumulated  wealth. 

The  Anglo-Saxon,  Mr.  President,  is  not  by  nature  or  in 
stinct  an  anarchist,  a  socialist,  a  nihilist,  or  a  communist.  He 
does  not  desire  the  repudiation  of  debts,  public  or  private, 
and  he  does  not  favor  the  forcible  redistribution  of  property. 
He  came  to  this  continent,  as  he  has  gone  everywhere  else  on 
the  face  of  the  earth,  with  a  purpose.  The  40,000  English 
colonists  who  came  to  this  country  between  1620  and  1650 
formed  the  most  significant,  the  most  formidable  migration 
that  has  ever  occurred  upon  this  globe  since  time  began.  They 
brought  with  them  social  and  political  ideas,  novel  in  their 
application,  of  inconceivable  energy  and  power — the  home, 
the  family,  the  State,  individualism,  the  right  of  personal 
effort,  freedom  of  conscience,  an  indomitable  love  of  liberty 
and  justice,  a  genius  for  self-gcvernment,  an  unrivaled  capac 
ity  for  conquest,  but  preferring  charters  to  the  sword — and 
they  have  been  inexorable  and  relentless  in  the  accomplish 
ment  of  their  designs.  They  were  fatigued  with  caste  and 
privilege  and  prerogative.  They  were  tired  of  monarchs,  and 
so,  upon  the  bleak  and  inhospitable  shores  of  New  England, 
they  decreed  the  sovereignty  of  the  people,  and  there  they 
builded  "a  church  without  a  bishop  and  a  state  without  a 
king." 

The  result  of  that  experiment,  Mr.  President,  has  been 
ostensibly  successful.  Under  the  operation  of  those  great 
forces,  after  two  hundred  and  seventy  years,  this  country 
exhibits  a  peaceful  triumph  over  many  subdued  nationalities, 
through  a  government  automatic  in  its  functions  and  sus- 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       315 

tained  by  no  power  but  the  invisible  majesty  of  law.  With 
swift  and  constant  communication  by  lines  of  steam  transpor 
tation  by  land  and  lake  and  sea,  with  telegraphs  extending 
their  nervous  reticulations  from  State  to  State,  the  remotest 
members  of  this  gigantic  Republic  are  animated  by  a  vitality 
as  vigorous  as  that  which  throbs  at  its  mighty  heart,  and  it  is 
through  the  quickened  intelligence  that  has  been  communicated 
by  those  ideas  that  these  conditions,  which  have  been  fatal  to 
other  nations,  have  become  the  pillars  of  our  strength  and  the 
bulwarks  of  our  safety. 

Mr.  President,  if  time  and  space  signified  now  what  they 
did  when  independence  was  declared,  the  United  States  could 
not  exist  under  one  government.  It  would  not  be  possible  to 
secure  unity  of  purpose  or  identity  of  interest  between  com 
munities  separated  by  such  barriers  and  obstacles  as  Maine  and 
California.  But  time  and  distance  are  relative  terms,  and, 
under  the  operations  of  these  forces,  this  continent  has  dwin 
dled  to  a  span.  It  is  not  as  far  from  Boston  to  San  Francisco 
to-day  as  it  was  from  Boston  to  Baltimore  in  1791 ;  and  as  the 
world  has  shrunk  life  has  expanded.  For  all  the  purposes  for 
which  existence  is  valuable  in  this  world — for  comfort,  for 
convenience,  for  opportunity,  for  intelligence,  for  power  of 
locomotion,  and  superiority  to  the  accidents  and  the  fatal 
ities  of  Nature — the  fewest  in  years  among  us,  Mr.  President, 
has  lived  longer  and  has  lived  more  worthily  than  Methuselah 
in  all  his  stagnant  centuries. 

When  the  Atlantic  cable  was  completed,  it  was  not  merely 
that  a  wire,  finer  by  comparison  than  the  gossamer  of  morning, 
had  sunk  to  its  path  along  the  peaks  and  the  plateaus  of 
the  deep,  but  the  earth  instantaneously  grew  smaller  by  the 
breadth  of  the  Atlantic.  A  new  volume  in  the  history  of  the 


3i 6  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

world  was  opened.  The  to-morrow  of  Europe  flashed  upon 
the  yesterday  of  America.  Time,  up  to  the  period  when  this 
experiment  commenced  on  this  continent,  yielded  its  treasures 
grudgingly  and  with  reluctance.  The  centuries  crept  from 
improvement  to  improvement  with  tardy,  sluggish  steps,  as  if 
Nature  were  unwilling  to  acknowledge  the  mastery  of  man. 
The  great  inventions  of  glass,  of  gunpowder,  of  printing,  and  the 
mariner's  compass  consumed  a  thousand  years,  but,  as  the  great 
experiment  upon  this  continent  has  proceeded,  the  ancient  law 
of  progress  has  been  disregarded,  and  the  mind  is  bewildered 
by  the  stupendous  results  of  its  marvelous  achievements. 

The  application  of  steam  to  locomotion  on  land  and  sea,  the 
cotton-gin,  electric  illumination  and  telegraphy,  the  cylinder 
printing-press,  the  sewing-machine,  the  photographic  art,  tubu 
lar  and  suspension  bridges,  the  telephone,  the  spectroscope,  and 
the  myriad  forms  of  new  applications  of  science  to  health  and 
domestic  comfort,  to  the  arts  of  peace  and  war,  have  alone  ren 
dered  democracy  possible.  The  steam  engine  emancipated 
millions  from  the  slavery  of  daily  toil  and  left  them  at  liberty 
to  pursue  a  higher  range  of  effort;  labor  has  become  more 
remunerative,  and  the  flood  of  wealth  has  raised  the  poor  to 
comfort  and  the  middle  classes  to  affluence.  With  prosperity 
have  attended  leisure,  books,  travel;  the  masses  have  been 
provided  with  schools,  and  the  range  of  mental  inquiry  has 
become  wider  and  more  daring.  The  sewing-machine  does 
the  work  of  a  hundred  hands  and  gives  rest  and  hope  to  weary 
lives.  Farming,  as  my  distinguished  friend  from  New  York 
[Mr.  Evarts]  once  said,  has  become  a  "sedentary  occupation." 
The  reaper  no  longer  swings  his  sickle  in  midsummer  fields 
through  the  yellowing  grain,  followed  by  those  who  gather  the 
wheat  and  the  tares,  but  he  rides  in  a  vehicle,  protected  from 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       317 

the  meridian  sun,  accomplishing  in  comfort  in  a  single  hour 
the  former  labors  of  a  day. 

By  these  and  the  other  emancipating  devices  of  society  the 
laborer  and  the  artisan  acquire  the  means  of  study  and  recre 
ation.  They  provide  their  children  with  better  opportunities 
than  they  possessed.  Emerging  from  the  obscure  degradation 
to  which  they  have  been  consigned  by  monarchies,  they  have 
assumed  the  leadership  in  politics  and  society.  The  governed 
have  become  the  governors;  the  subjects  have  become  the 
kings.  They  have  formed  States;  they  have  invented  polit 
ical  systems ;  they  have  made  laws ;  they  have  established  lit 
eratures;  and  it  is  not  true,  Mr.  President,  in  one  sense,  that 
during  this  extraordinary  period  the  rich  have  grown  richer 
and  the  poor  have  grown  poorer,  There  has  never  been  a  time 
since  the  angel  stood  with  the  flaming  sword  before  the  gates 
of  Kden  when  the  dollar  of  invested  capital  paid  as  low  a  return 
in  interest  as  it  does  to-day;  nor  has  there  been  an  hour  when 
the  dollar  that  is  earned  by  the  laboring  man  would  buy  so 
much  of  everything  that  is  essential  for  the  welfare  of  himself 
and  his  family  as  it  will  to-day. 

Mr.  President,  monopolies  and  corporations,  however  strong 
they  may  be,  cannot  permanently  enslave  such  a  people. 
They  have  given  too  many  convincing  proofs  of  their  capacity 
for  self-government.  They  have  made  too  many  incredible 
sacrifices  for  this  great  system  which  has  been  builded  and 
established  here  to  allow  it  to  be  overthrown.  They  will 
submit  to  no  dictation. 

We  have  become,  Mr.  President,  the  wealthiest  nation  upon 
the  face  of  this  earth,  and  the  greater  part  of  these  enormous 
accumulations  has  been  piled  up  during  the  past  fifty  years. 
From  1860  to  1880,  notwithstanding  the  losses  incurred  by 


3i 8  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  most  destructive  war  of  modern  times,  the  emancipation 
of  four  billions  of  slave  property,  the  expenses  of  feeding  the 
best  fed,  of  clothing  the  best  clothed,  and  of  sheltering  the  best 
sheltered  people  in  the  world,  notwithstanding  all  the  losses 
by  fire  and  flood  during  that  period  of  twenty  years,  the  wealth 
of  the  country  increased  at  the  rate  of  $250,000  for  every 
hour.  Every  time  that  the  clock  ticked  above  the  portal  of 
this  chamber  the  aggregated,  accumulated,  permanent  wealth 
of  this  country  increased  more  than  $70. 

Sir,  it  rivals,  it  exceeds  the  fictions  of  the  Arabian  Nights. 
There  is  nothing  in  the  story  of  the  lamp  of  Aladdin  that 
surpasses  it.  It  is  without  parallel  or  precedent ;  and  the  na 
tional  ledger  now  shows  a  balance  to  our  credit,  after  all  that 
has  been  wasted  and  squandered  and  expended  and  lost  and 
thrown  away,  of  between  sixty  and  seventy  thousand  million 
dollars.  I  believe  myself  that,  upon  a  fair  cash  market  valua 
tion,  the  aggregate  wealth  of  this  country  to-day  is  not  less 
than  one  hundred  thousand  million  dollars.  This  is  enough, 
Mr.  President,  to  make  every  man  and  every  woman  and 
every  child  beneath  the  flag  comfortable,  to  keep  the  wolf 
away  from  the  door.  It  is  enough  to  give  to  every  family  a 
competence,  and  yet  we  are  told  that  there  are  thousands  of 
people  who  never  have  enough  to  eat  in  any  one  day  in  the 
year.  We  are  told  by  the  statisticians  of  the  Department  of 
Labor  of  the  United  States  that,  notwithstanding  this  stu 
pendous  aggregation,  there  are  a  million  American  citizens, 
able-bodied  and  willing  to  work,  who  tramp  the  streets  of  our 
cities  and  the  country  highways  and  byways  in  search  of  labor 
with  which  to  buy  their  daily  bread,  in  vain. 

Mr.  President,  is  it  any  wonder  that  this  condition  of  things 
can  exist  without  exciting  profound  apprehension  ?  I  heard — 


IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CAESAR."       319 

or  saw,  rather,  for  I  did  not  hear  it — I  saw  in  the  morning 
papers  that,  in  his  speech  yesterday,  the  Senator  from  Ohio 
[Mr.  Sherman]  devoted  a  considerable  part  of  his  remarks  to 
the  defense  of  millionaires;  that  he  declared  they  were  the 
froth  upon  the  beer  of  our  political  system. 

Mr.  SHERMAN:     I  said,  "speculators." 

Mr.  INGALLS:  Speculators.  They  are  very  nearly  the 
same,  for  the  millionaires  of  this  country,  Mr.  President,  are 
not  the  producers  and  the  laborers.  They  are  arrayed  like 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory,  but  "they  toil  not,  neither  do  they 
spin" — yes,  they  do  spin.  This  class,  Mr.  President,  I  am  glad 
to  say,  is  not  confined  to  this  country  alone.  These  gigantic 
accumulations  have  not  been  the  result  of  industry  and  econ 
omy.  There  would  be  no  protest  against  them  if  they  were. 
There  is  an  anecdote  floating  around  the  papers,  speaking  about 
beer,  that  some  gentleman  said  to  the  keeper  of  a  saloon  that 
he  would  give  him  a  recipe  for  selling  more  beer,  and  when  he 
inquired  what  it  was,  he  said:  "Sell  less  froth."  [Laughter.] 
If  the  millionaires  and  speculators  of  this  country  are  the  froth 
upon  the  beer  of  our  system,  the  time  has  come  when  we  should 
sell  more  beer  by  selling  less  froth.  [Laughter.] 

The  people  are  beginning  to  inquire  whether,  "  under  a 
government  of  the  people,  and  by  the  people,  and  for  the  peo 
ple,"  under  a  system  in  which  the  bounty  of  Nature  is  supple 
mented  by  the  labor  of  all,  any  citizen  can  show  a  moral,  yes, 
or  a  legal  title  to  $200,000,000.  Some  have  the  temerity  to  ask 
whether  or  not  any  man  can  show  a  clear  title  to  $100,000,000. 
There  have  been  men  rash  enough  to  doubt  whether,  under  a 
system  so  constituted  and  established,  by  speculation  or  other 
wise,  any  citizen  can  show  a  fair  title  to  $10,000,000,  when  the 
distribution  of  wealth  per  capita  would  be  less  than  $1,000. 


32O  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

If  I  were  put  upon  my  voir  dire,  I  should  hesitate  before  admit 
ting  that,  in  the  sense  of  giving  just  compensation  and  equiva 
lent,  any  man  in  this  country  or  any  other  country  ever  abso 
lutely  earned  a  million  dollars.  I  do  not  believe  he  ever  did. 

What  is  the  condition  to-day,  Mr.  President,  by  the  sta 
tistics?  I  said,  at  the  beginning  of  this  century  there  was  a 
condition  of  practical  social  equality;  wealth  was  uniformly 
diffused  among  the  great  mass  of  the  people.  I  repeat  that 
the  people  are  not  anarchists ;  they  are  not  socialists ;  they  are 
not  communists ;  but  they  have  suddenly  waked  to  the  concep 
tion  of  the  fact  that  the  bulk  of  the  property  of  the  country  is 
passing  into  the  hands  of  what  the  Senator  from  Ohio  by  an 
euphemism  calls  the  "speculators"  of  the  world,  not  of  America 
alone.  They  infest  the  financial  and  social  systems  of  every 
country  upon  the  face  of  the  earth.  They  are  the  men  of  no 
politics,  neither  Democrat  nor  Republican.  They  are  the  men 
of  all  nationalities  and  of  no  nationality,  with  no  politics  but 
plunder,  and  with  no  principle  but  the  spoliation  of  the  human 
race. 

A  table  has  been  compiled  for  the  purpose  of  showing  how 
wealth  in  this  country  is  distributed,  and  it  is  full  of  the  most 
startling  admonition.  It  has  appeared  in  the  magazines;  it 
has  been  commented  upon  in  this  chamber;  it  has  been  the 
theme  of  editorial  discussion  It  appears  from  this  compila 
tion  that  there  are  in  the  United  States  two  hundred  persons 
who  have  an  aggregate  of  more  than  $20,000,000  each;  and 
there  has  been  one  man,  the  Midas  of  the  century,  at  whose 
touch  everything  seemed  to  turn  to  gold,  who  had  acquired 
within  less  than  the  lifetime  of  a  single  individual,  out  of  the 
aggregate  of  the  national  wealth  that  was  earned  by  the  labor 
of  all  applied  to  the  common  bounty  of  Nature,  an  aggregate 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       321 

that  exceeded  the  assessed  valuation  of  four  of  the  smallest 
States  in  this  Union. 

Mr.  HOAR:  And  more  than  the  whole  country  had  when 
the  Constitution  was  formed. 

Mr.  INGAIXS:  Yes,  and,  as  the  Senator  from  Massachu 
setts  well  observes — and  I  thank  him  for  the  suggestion — 
much  more,  many  times  more  than  the  entire  wealth  of  the 
country  when  it  was  established  and  founded.  Four  hundred 
persons  possess  $10,000,000  each,  1,000  persons  $5,000,000 
each,  2,000  persons  $2,500,000  each,  6,000  persons  $1,000,000 
each,  and  15,000  persons  $500,000  each,  making  a  total  of 
31,100  people  who  possess  $36,250,000,000. 

Mr.  President,  it  is  the  most  appalling  statement  that  ever 
fell  upon  mortal  ears.  It  is,  so  far  as  the  results  of  democracy 
as  a  social  and  political  experiment  are  concerned,  the  most 
terrible  commentary  that  ever  was  recorded  in  the  book  of 
Time;  and  Nero  fiddles  while  Rome  burns.  It  is  thrown  off 
with  a  laugh  and  a  sneer  as  the  "froth  upon  the  beer"  of  our 
political  and  social  system.  As  I  said,  the  assessed  valuation 
recorded  in  the  great  national  ledger  standing  to  our  credit 
is  about  $65,000,000,000. 

Our  population  is  sixty-two  and  one-half  millions,  and  by 
some  means,  by  some  device,  by  some  machination,  by  some 
incantation,  honest  or  otherwise,  by  some  process  that  cannot 
be  denned,  less  than  a  two-thousandth  part  of  our  population 
have  obtained  possession,  and  have  kept  out  of  the  peniten 
tiary  in  spite  of  the  means  they  have  adopted  to  acquire  it,  of 
more  than  one-half  of  the  entire  accumulated  wealth  of  the 
country.  That  is  not  the  worst,  Mr.  President.  It  has  been 
largely  acquired  by  men  who  have  contributed  little  to  the 
material  welfare  of  the  country  and  by  processes  that  I  do  not 


322  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

care  in  appropriate  terms  to  describe,  by  the  wrecking  of  the 
fortunes  of  innocent  men,  women,  and  children,  by  jugglery, 
by  bookkeeping,  bv  financiering,  by  what  the  Senator  from 
Ohio  calls  "speculation,"  and  this  process  is  going  on  with 
frightful  and  constantly  accelerating  rapidity. 

The  entire  industry  of  this  country  is  passing  under  the 
control  of  organized  and  confederated  capital.  More  than 
fifty  of  the  necessaries  of  life  to-day,  without  which  the  cabin 
of  the  farmer  and  the  miner  cannot  be  lighted,  or  his  children 
fed  or  clothed,  have  passed  absolutely  under  the  control  of 
syndicates  and  trusts  arid  corporations  composed  of  specu 
lators,  and,  by  means  of  these  combinations  and  confedera 
tions,  competition  is  destroyed;  small  dealings  are  rendered 
impossible;  competence  can  no  longer  be  acquired,  for  it  is 
superfluous  and  unnecessary  to  say  that  if,  under  a  system 
where  the  accumulations  distributed  per  capita  would  be  less 
than  a  thousand  dollars,  thirty-one  thousand  obtained  posses 
sion  of  more  than  half  of  the  accumulated  wealth  of  the 
country,  it  is  impossible  that  others  should  have  a  competence 
or  an  independence. 

So  it  happens,  Mr.  President,  that  our  society  is  becoming 
rapidly  stratified,  almost  hopelessly  stratified,  into  a  condition 
of  superfluously  rich  and  helplessly  poor.  We  are  accustomed 
to  speak  of  this  as  the  land  of  the  free  and  the  home  of  the 
brave.  It  will  soon  be  the  home  of  the  rich  and  the  land  of  the 
slave. 

We  point  to  Great  Britain  and  we  denounce  aristocracy, 
and  privileged  and  titled  classes,  and  landed  estates.  We 
thought  when  we  had  abolished  primogeniture  and  entail,  that 
we  had  forever  forbidden  and  prevented  these  enormous  and 
dangerous  accumulations;  but,  sir,  we  had  forgotten  that  cap- 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       323 

ital  could  combine;  we  were  unaware  of  the  yet  undeveloped 
capacity  of  corporations,  and  so,  as  I  say,  it  happens  upon  the 
threshold  and  in  the  vestibule  of  our  second  century,  with 
all  this  magnificent  record  behind  us,  with  this  tremendous 
achievement  in  the  way  of  wealth,  population,  invention,  op 
portunity  for  happiness,  we  are  in  a  condition  compared  with 
which  the  accumulated  fortunes  of  Great  Britain  are  puerile 
and  insignificant. 

It  is  no  wonder,  Mr.  President,  that  the  laboring,  industrial, 
and  agricultural  classes  of  this  country,  who  have  been  made 
intelligent  under  the  impulse  of  universal  education,  have  at 
last  awakened  to  this -tremendous  condition  and  are  inquiring 
whether  or  not  this  experiment  has  been  successful.  And,  sir, 
the  speculators  must  beware.  They  have  forgotten  that  the 
conditions,  political  and  social,  here  are  not  a  reproduction  of 
the  conditions  under  which  these  circumstances  exist  in  other 
lands.  Here  is  no  dynasty;  here  is  no  privilege  or  caste,  or 
prerogative ;  here  are  no  standing  armies ;  here  are  no  hered 
itary  bondsmen,  but  every  atom  in  our  political  system  is  quick, 
instinct,  and  endowed  with  life  and  power.  His  ballot  at  the 
box  is  the  equivalent  of  the  ballot  of  the  richest  speculator. 
Thomas  Jefferson,  the  great  apostle  of  modern  Democracy, 
taught  the  lesson  to  his  followers,  and  they  have  profited  well 
by  his  instruction,  that  under  a  popular,  democratic,  repre 
sentative  government,  wealth,  culture,  intelligence  were  ulti 
mately  no  match  for  numbers. 

The  numbers  in  this  country,  Mr.  President,  have  learned 
at  last  the  power  of  combination,  and  the  speculators  should 
not  forget  that,  while  the  people  of  this  country  are  gener 
ous  and  just,  they  are  jealous  also,  and  that  when  discontent 
changes  to  resentment  and  resantment  passes  into  exaspera- 


324  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

tion,  one  volume  of  a  nation's  history  is  closed  and  another 
will  be  opened. 

The  speculators,  Mr.  President !  The  cotton  product  of  thie 
country,  I  believe,  is  about  six  million  bales. 

Mr.  BUTLER:     Seven  million  bales. 

Mr.  INGALLS:  Seven  million  bales,  I  am  told.  The  trans 
actions  of  the  New  York  Cotton  Exchange  are  forty  million 
bales,  representing  transactions  speculative,  profitable,  remuner 
ative,  by  which  some  of  these  great  accumulations  have  been 
piled  i;p,  an  inconceivable  burden  upon  the  energies  and  in 
dustries  of  the  country. 

The  production  of  coal  oil,  I  believe,  in  this  country  has 
average  something  like  twenty  million  barrels  a  year.  The 
transactions  of  the  New  York  Petroleum  Exchange,  year  by 
year,  average  two  billion  barrels,  fictitious,  simulated,  the  in 
struments  of  the  gambler  and  the  speculator,  by  means  of  which, 
through  an  impost  upon  the  toil,  and  labor,  and  industry  of 
every  laborer  engaged  in  the  production  of  petroleum,  addi 
tional  difficulties  are  imposed. 

It  is  reported  that  the  coal  alone  that  is  mined  in  Penn 
sylvania,  indispensable  to  the  comfort  of  millions  of  men, 
amounts  in  its  annual  product  to  about  $40,000,000,  of  which 
one-third  is  profit  over  and  above  the  cost  of  production,  and 
a  fair  return  for  the  capital  invested. 

That  is  "speculation,"  Mr.  President,  and  every  dollar 
over  and  above  the  cost  of  production,  with  a  fair  return  upon 
the  capital  invested,  every  dollar  of  that  fifteen  or  sixteen  mil 
lions  is  filched,  robbed,  violently  plundered  out  of  the  earnings 
of  the  laborers  and  operatives  and  farmers  who  are  com 
pelled  to  buy  it;  and  yet  it  goes  by  the  euphemistic  name  of 
"speculation"  and  is  declared  to  be  legitimate;  it  is  eulogized 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  C^BSAR."       325 

and  defended  as  one  of  those  practices  that  are  entitled  to 
respect  and  approbation. 

Nor  is  this  all,  Mr.  President.  The  hostility  between  the 
employers  and  the  employed  in  this  country  is  becoming  vin 
dictive  and  permanently  malevolent.  Labor  and  capital  are 
in  two  hostile  camps  to-day.  Lockouts  and  strikes  and  labor 
difficulties  have  become  practically  the  normal  condition  of 
our  system,  and  it  is  estimated  that  during  the  year  that 
has  just  closed,  in  consequence  of  these  disorders,  in  conse 
quence  of  this  hostility  and  this  warfare,  the  actual  loss  in 
labor,  in  wages,  in  the  destruction  of  perishable  commodities 
by  the  interruption  of  railway  traffic,  has  not  been  less  than 
$300,000,000. 

Mr.  President,  this  is  a  serious  problem.  It  may  well 
engage  the  attention  of  the  representatives  of  the  States  and 
of  the  American  people.  I  have  no  sympathy  v/ith  that  school 
of  political  economists  which  teaches  that  there  is  an  irrecon 
cilable  conflict  between  labor  and  capital,  and  which  demands 
indiscriminate,  hostile,  and  repressive  legislation  against  men 
because  they  are  rich  and  corporations  because  they  are  strong. 
Labor  and  capital  should  not  be  antagonists,  but  allies  rather. 
They  should  not  be  opponents  and  enemies,  but  colleagues  and 
auxiliaries  whose  cooperating  rivalry  is  essential  to  national 
prosperity.  But  I  cannot  forbear  to  affirm  that  a  political 
system  under  which  such  despotic  power  can  be  wrested  from 
the  people  and  vested  in  a  few  is  a  democracy  only  in  name. 

A  financial  system  under  which  more  than  one-half  of  the 
enormous  wealth  of  the  country,  derived  from  the  bounty  of 
Nature  and  the  labor  of  all,  is  owned  by  a  little  more  than 
thirty  thousand  people,  while  one  million  American  citizens, 


326  JOHN  JAMES  ING  ALLS. 

able  and  willing  to  toil,  are  homeless  tramps,  starving  for 
bread,  requires  readjustment. 

A  social  system  which  offers  to  tender,  virtuous,  and  de 
pendent  women  the  alternative  between  prostitution  and  sui 
cide  as  an  escape  from  beggary,  is  organized  crime,  for  which 
some  day  unrelenting  justice  will  demand  atonement  and 
expiation. 

Mr.  President,  the  man  who  loves  his  country  and  the  man 
who  studies  her  history  will  search  in  vain  for  any  natural 
cause  for  this  appalling  condition.  The  earth  has  not  forgotten 
to  yield  her  increase.  There  has  been  no  general  failure  of 
harvests.  We  have  had  benignant  skies  and  the  early  and 
the  latter  rain.  Neither  famine  nor  pestilence  has  decimated 
our  population  nor  wasted  its  energies.  Immigration  is  flow 
ing  in  from  every  land,  and  we  are  in  the  lusty  prime  of  national 
youth  and  strength,  with  unexampled  resources  and  every 
stimulus  to  their  development;  but,  sir,  the  great  body  of  the 
American  people  are  engaged  to-day  in  studying  these  prob 
lems  that  I  have  suggested  in  this  morning  hour.  They  are 
disheartened  with  misfortunes.  They  are  weary  with  unre 
quited  toil.  They  are  tired  of  the  exactions  of  the  speculators. 
They  desire  peace  and  rest.  They  are  turning  their  attention 
to  the  great  industrial  questions  which  underlie  their  material 
prosperity.  They  are  indifferent  to  party.  They  care  noth 
ing  for  Republicanism  nor  for  Democracy  as  such.  They  are 
ready  to  say,  "A  plague  on  both  your  houses";  and  they  are 
ready  also,  Mr.  President,  to  hail  and  to  welcome  any  organiza 
tion,  any  measure,  any  leader  that  promises  them  relief  from 
the  profitless  strife  of  politicians  and  this  turbulent  and  dis 
tracting  agitation,  which  has  already  culminated  in  violence 
and  may  end  in  blood. 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       327 

Such,  sir,  is  the  verdict  which  I  read  in  the  elections  from 
which  we  have  just  emerged,  a  verdict  that  was  unexpected 
by  the  leaders  of  both  parties,  and  which  surprised  alike  the 
victors  and  the  vanquished.  It  was  a  spontaneous,  unpre 
meditated  protest  of  the  people  against  existing  conditions. 
It  was  a  revolt  of  the  national  conscience  against  injustice,  a 
movement  that  is  full  of  pathos  and  also  full  of  danger,  because 
such  movements  sometimes  make  victims  of  those  who  are 
guiltless.  It  was  not  a  Republican  defeat.  It  was  not  a 
Democratic  victory.  It  was  a  great  upheaval  and  uprising, 
independent  of  and  superior  to  both.  It  was  a  crisis  that  may 
become  a  catastrophe,  filled  with  terrible  admonition,  but  not 
without  encouragement  to  those  who  understand  and  are  ready 
to  cooperate  with  it.  It  was  a  peaceful  revolution,  an  attempt 
to  resume  rights  that  seemed  to  have  been  infringed. 

It  is  many  years,  Mr.  President,  since  I  predicted  this 
inevitable  result.  In  a  speech  delivered  in  this  chamber  on 
the  1 5th  of  February,  1878,  from  the  seat  that  is  now  adorned 
by  my  honorable  friend  from  Texas  who  sits  before  me  [Mr 
Reagan],  I  said: 

"We  cannot  disguise  the  truth  that  we  are  on  the  verge  of  an  impending 
revolution.  The  old  issues  are  dead.  The  people  are  arraying  themselves 
upon  one  side  or  the  other  of  a  portentous  contest.  On  one  side  is  capital, 
formidably  intrenched  in  privilege,  arrogant  from  continued  triumph,  con 
servative,  tenacious  of  old  theories,  demanding  new  concessions,  enriched 
by  domestic  levy  and  foreign  commerce,  and  struggling  to  adjust  all  values 
to  its  own  standard.  On  the  other  is  labor,  asking  for  employment,  striv 
ing  to  develop  domestic  industries,  battling  with  the  forces  of  Nature,  and 
subduing  the  wilderness;  labor,  starving  and  sullen  in  cities,  resolutely 
determined  to  overthrow  a  system  under  which  the  rich  are  growing  richer 
and  the  poor  are  growing  poorer;  a  system  which  gives  to  a  Vanderbilt 
the  possession  of  wealth  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice,  and  condemns  the 
poor  to  a  poverty  which  has  no  refuge  from  starvation  but  the  prison  or 
the  grave. 


328  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

"Our  demands  for  relief,  for  justice,  have  been  met  with  indifference 
or  disdain.  The  laborers  of  the  country  asking  for  employment  are  treat 
ed  like  impudent  mendicants  begging  for  bread." 

Mr.  President,  it  may  be  cause,  it  may  be  coincidence,  it 
may  be  effect,  it  may  be  post  hoc  or  it  may  be  propter  hoc,  but 
it  is  historically  true  that  this  great  blight  that  has  fallen  upon 
our  industries,  this  paralysis  that  has  overtaken  our  financial 
system,  coincided  in  point  of  time  with  the  diminution  of  the 
circulating  medium  of  the  country. 

The  public  debt  was  declared  to  be  payable  in  coin,  and 
then  the  money  power  of  silver  was  destroyed.  The  value  of 
property  diminished  in  proportion,  wages  fell,  and  the  value 
of  everything  was  depreciated  except  debts  and  gold.  The 
mortgage,  the  bond,  the  coupon,  and  the  tax  have  retained 
immortal  youth  and  vigor.  They  have  not  depreciated.  The 
debt  remains,  but  the  capacity  to  pay  has  been  destroyed. 
The  accumulation  of  years  disappears  under  the  hammer  of 
the  sheriff,  and  the  debtor  is  homeless,  while  the  creditor 
obtains  the  security  for  his  debt  for  a  fraction  of  what  it  was 
actually  worth  when  the  debt  was  contracted. 

There  is,  Mr.  President,  a  deep-seated  conviction  among 
the  people,  which  I -fully  share,  that  the  demonetization  of 
silver  in  1873  was  one  element  of  a  great  conspiracy  to  de 
liver  the  fiscal  system  of  this  country  over  to  those  by  whom 
it  has,  in  my  opinion,  finally  been  captured.  I  see  no  proof 
of  the  assertion  that  the  demonetization  act  of  1873  was  fraud 
ulently  or  corruptly  procured,  but  from  the  statements  that 
have  been  made  it  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  conviction  that 
it  was  part  of  a  deliberate  plan  and  conspiracy  formed  by  those 
who  have  been  called  "speculators"  to  still  further  increase 
the  value  of  the  standard  by  which  their  accumulations  were 


""THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       329 

to  be  measured.  The  attention  of  the  people  was  not  called 
to  the  subject.  It  is  one  of  the  anomalies  and  phenomena  of 
legislation. 

That  bill  was  pending  in  its  various  stages  for  four  years 
in  both  houses  of  Congress.  It  passed  both  bodies  by  decided 
majorities.  It  was  read  and  reread  and  reprinted  thirteen 
times,  as  appears  by  the  records.  It  was  commented  upon 
in  newspapers;  it  was  the  subject  of  discussion  in  financial 
bodies  all  over  the  country;  and  yet  we  have  the  concurrent 
testimony  of  every  senator  and  every  member  .of  the  House 
of  Representatives  who  was  present  during  the  time  that  the 
legislation  was  pending  and  proceeding  that  he  knew  nothing 
whatever  about  the  demonetization  of  silver  and  the  destruc 
tion  of  the  coinage  of  the  silver  dollar.  The  Senator  from 
Nevada  [Mr.  Stewart],  who  knows  so  many  things,  felt  called 
upon  to  make  a  speech  of  an  hour's  duration  to  show  that  he 
knew  nothing  whatever  about  it.  I  have  heard  other  mem 
bers  declaim  and  with  one  consent  make  excuse  that  they 
knew  nothing  about  it. 

As  I  say,  it  is  one  of  the  phenomena  and  anomalies  of  legis 
lation,  and  I  have  no  other  explanation  to  make  than  this : 
I  believe  that  both  houses  of  Congress  and  the  President  of 
the  United  States  must  have  been  hypnotized.  So  great  was 
the  power  of  capital,  so  profound  was  the  impulse,  so  persist 
ent  was  the  determination,  that  the  promoters  of  this  scheme 
succeeded  by  the  operation  of  mind-power  and  will-force  in 
capturing  and  bewildering  the  intelligence  of  men  of  all  parties, 
of  members  of  both  houses  of  Congress,  and  the  members  of 
the  Cabinet,  and  the  President  of  the  United  States. 

And  yet,  Mr.  President,  it  cannot  be  doubted  that  the 
statements  that  these  gentlemen  make  are  true.  There  is  no 


330  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

doubt  of  the  sincerity  or  the  candor  of  those  who  have  testified 
upon  this  matter;  and  it  is  incredible  (I  am  glad  it  occurred 
before  I  was  a  member  of  this  body)  that  a  change  in  our 
financial  system  that  deprived  one  of  the  money  metals  of  its 
debt-paying  power,  that  changed  the  whole  financial  system 
of  the  country  and  to  a  certain  extent  the  entire  fiscal  meth 
ods  of  the  world,  could  have  been  engineered  through  the-  Sen 
ate  and  the  House  of  Representatives  and  the  Cabinet  of  the 
President  and  secured  executive  approval  without  a  single 
human  being  knowing  anything  whatever  about  it.  In  an  age 
of  miracles,  Mr.  President,  wonders  never  cease. 

It  is  true  that  this  marvel  was  accomplished  when  the  sub 
ject  was  not  one  of  public  discussion.  It  was  done  at  a  time 
when,  although  the  public  mind  was  intensely  interested  in 
financial  subjects  and  methods  of  relief  from  existing  condi 
tions  were  assiduously  sought,  the  suggestion  had  never  pro 
ceeded  from  any  quarter  that  this  could  be  accomplished  by 
the  demonetization  of  silver,  or  ceasing  to  coin  the  silver  dol 
lar.  It  was  improvidently  done,  but  it  would  not  be  more 
surprising,  it  would  not  be  more  of  a  strain  upon  human  judg 
ment,  if  fifteen  years  from  now  we  were  to  be  informed  that 
no  one  was  aware  that  in  the  bill  that  is  now  pending  the  prop 
osition  was  not  made  for  the  free  coinage  of  silver. 

Mr.  President,  there  is  not  a  State  west  of  the  Alleghany 
Mountains  and  south  of  the  Potomac  and  Ohio  rivers  that  is 
not  in  favor  of  the  free  coinage  of  silver.  There  is  not  a  State 
in  which,  if  that  proposition  were  to  be  submitted  to  a  popular 
vote,  it  would  not  be  adopted  by  an  overwhelming  majority. 
I  do  not  mean  by  that  inclusion  to  say  that  in  those  States  east 
of  the  Alleghanies  and  north  of  the  Ohio  and  Potomac  rivers 
there  is  any  hostility  or  indisposition  to  receive  the  benefits 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  C^SAR."       331 

that  would  result  from  the  remonetization  of  silver.  On  the 
contrary,  in  the  great  commonwealths  that  lie  to  the  northeast 
upon  the  Atlantic  seaboard,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and  the 
manufacturing  and  commercial  States,  I  am  inclined  to  believe 
from  the  tone  of  the  press,  from  the  declarations  of  many 
assemblies,  that  if  the  proposition  were  to  be  submitted  there, 
it  would  also  receive  a  majority  of  the  votes. 

If  the  proposition  were  to  be  submitted  to  the  votes  of  the 
people  of  this  country  at  large,  whether  the  silver  dollar  should 
be  recoined  and  silver  remonetized,  notwithstanding  the  proph 
ecies,  the  predictions,  the  animadversions  of  those  who  are 
opposed  to  it,  I  have  not  the  slightest  doubt  that  the  great 
majority  of  the  people,  irrespective  of  party,  would  be  in  favor 
of  it,  and  would  so  record  themselves.  They  have  declared 
in  favor  of  it  for  the  past  fifteen  years,  and  they  have  been 
juggled  with,  they  have  been  thwarted,  they  have  been  pal 
tered  with  and  dealt  with  in  a  double  sense.  The  word  of 
promise  that  was  made  to  their  ear  in  the  platforms  of  political 
parties  has  been  broken  to  their  hope.  There  was  a  majority 
in  this  body  at  the  last  session  of  Congress  in  favor  of  the  free 
coinage  of  silver.  The  compromise  that  was  made  was  not 
what  the  people  expected  nor  what  they  had  a  right  to  demand. 
They  felt  that  they  had  been  trifled  with,  and  that  is  one  cause 
of  the  exasperation  expressed  in  the  verdict  of  November  4th. 

I  feel  impelled  to  make  one  further  observation.  Warn 
ings  and  admonitions  have  been  plenty  in  this  debate.  We 
have  been  admonished  of  the  danger  that  would  follow;  we 
have  been  notified  of  what  would  occur  if  the  free  coinage  of 
silver  were  supported  by  a  majority  of  this  body,  or  if  it  were 
to  be  adopted  as  a  part  of  our  financial  system.  I  am  not  a 
prophet,  nor  the  son  of  a  prophet;  but  I  say  to  those  who  are 


332  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

now  arraying  themselves  against  the  deliberately  expressed 
judgment  of  the  American  people,  a  judgment  that  they  know 
has  been  declared  and  recorded — I  say  to  the  members  of  this 
body,  I  say,  so  far  as  I  may  do  so  with  propriety,  to  the  mem 
bers  of  the  coordinate  branch  of  Congress,  and  I  say,  if  without 
impropriety  I  may  do  so,  to  the  Executive  of  the  Nation,  that 
there  will  come  a  time  when  the  people  will  be  trifled  with  no 
longer  on  this  subject. 

Once,  twice,  thrice,  by  executive  intervention,  Democratc 
and  Republican,  by  parliamentary  proceedings  that  I  need  not 
characterize,  by  various  methods  of  legislative  jugglery,  the 
deliberate  purpose  of  the  American  people,  irrespective  of 
party,  has  been  thwarted,  it  has  been  defied,  it  has  been  con- 
tumeliously  trodden  under  foot ;  and  I  repeat  to  those  who 
have  been  the  instruments  and  the  implements,  no  matter 
what  the  impulse  or  the  motive  or  the  intention  may  have 
been,  at  some  time  the  people  will  elect  a  House  of  Represent 
atives,  they  will  elect  a  Senate  of  the  United  States,  they  will 
elect  a  President  of  the  United  States,  who  will  carry  out  their 
pledges  and  execute  the  popular  will. 

Mr.  President,  by  the  readjustment  of  the  political  forces 
of  the  Nation  under  the  Eleventh  Census,  the  seat  of  political 
power  has  at  last  been  transferred  from  the  circumference  of 
this  country  to  its  center.  It  has  been  transferred  from  the 
seaboard  to  that  great  intramontane  region  between  the  Alle- 
ghanies  and  the  Sierras,  extending  from  the  British  possessions 
to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  a  region  whose  growth  is  one  of  the  won 
ders  and  marvels  of  modern  civilization.  It  seems  as  if  the 
column  of  migration  had  paused  in  its  westward  march  to  build 
upon  those  tranquil  plains  and  in  those  fertile  valleys  a  fabric 
of  civilization  that  should  be  the  wonder  and  the  admiration 


"TnE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       333 

of  the  world,  rich  in  every  element  of  present  prosperity,  but 
richer  in  every  prophecy  of  future  greatness  and  renown. 

When  I  went  West,  Mr.  President,  as  a  carpetbagger  in 
1858,  St.  Louis  was  an  outpost  of  civilization,  Jefferson  City 
was  the  farthest  point  reached  by  a  railroad,  and  in  all  that 
great  wilderness,  extending  from  the  sparse  settlements  along 
the  Missouri  to  the  summits  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  and  from 
the  Yellowstone  to  the  canons  of  the  Rio  Grande,  a  vast  sol 
itude  from  which  I  have  myself  since  that  time  voted  to  ad 
mit  seven  States  into  the  American  Union,  there  was  neither 
harvest  nor  husbandry,  neither  habitation  nor  home,  save  the 
hut  of  the  hunter  and  the  wigwam  of  the  savage.  Mr.  Presi 
dent,  we  have  now  within  those  limits,  extending  southward 
from  the  British  possessions  and  embracing  the  States  of  the 
Mississippi  Valley,  the  Gulf,  and  the  southeastern  Atlantic,  a 
vast  productive  region,  the  granary  of  the  world,  a  majority 
of  the  members  of  this  body,  of  the  House  of  Representatives, 
and  of  the  Electoral  College. 

We  talk  with  admiration  of  Egypt.  For  thirty  centuries 
the  ruins  of  its  cities,  its  art,  its  religions,  have  been  the  marvel 
of  mankind.  The  Pyramids  have  survived  the  memory  of 
their  builders,  and  the  Sphinx  still  questions  with  solemn  gaze 
the  vague  mystery  of  the  desert. 

The  great  fabric  of  Egyptian  civilization,  with  its  wealth 
and  power,  the  riches  of  its  art,  its  creeds,  and  faiths,  and 
philosophies,  was  reared  from  the  labors  of  a  few  million  slaves 
under  the  lash  of  despots,  upon  a  narrow  margin  four  hun 
dred  and  fifty  miles  long  and  ten  miles  wide,  comprising  in  all, 
with  the  delta  of  the  Nile,  no  more  than  ten  thousand  square 
miles  of  fertile  land. 


334  JOHN  JAMES  INGAU& 

Who,  sir,  can  foretell  the  future  of  that  region  to  which  I 
have  adverted,  with  its  twenty  thousand  miles  of  navigable 
water-courses,  with  its  hundreds  of  thousands  of  square  miles 
of  soil,  excelling  in  fecundity  all  that  of  the  Nile,  when  the 
labor  of  centuries  of  freemen  under  the  impulse  of  our  insti 
tutions  shall  have  brought  forth  their  perfect  results? 

Mr.  President,  it  is  to  that  region,  with  that  population 
and  with  such  a  future,  that  the  political  power  of  this  country 
has  at  last  been  transferred,  and  they  are  now  unanimously 
demanding  the  free  coinage  of  silver.  It  is  for  that  reason 
that  I  shall  cordially  support  the  amendment  proposed  by  the 
Senator  from  Nevada.  In  doing  so  I  not  only  follow  the  dic 
tates  of  my  own  judgment,  but  I  carry  out  the  wishes  of  a 
great  majority  of  my  constituents,  irrespective  of  party  or  of 
political  affiliation.  I  have  been  for  the  free  coinage  of  silver 
from  the  outset,  and  I  am  free  to  say  that,  after  having  observed 
the  operations  of .  the  act  of  1878,  I  am  more  than  ever  con 
vinced  of  the  wisdom  of  that  legislation  and  the  futility  of  the 
accusations  by  which  it  was  assailed. 

The  people  of  the  country  that  I  represent  have  lost  their 
reverence  for  gold.  They  have  no  longer  any  superstition 
about  coin.  Notwithstanding  all  the  declarations  of  the  mono- 
metallists,  notwithstanding  all  the  assaults  that  have  been 
made  by  those  who  are  in  favor  of  still  further  increasing  the 
value  of  the  standard  by  which  their  possessions  are  measured, 
they  know  that  money  is  neither  wealth  nor  capital  nor  value, 
and  that  it  is  merely  the  creation  of  the  law,  by  which  all 
these  are  estimated  and  measured. 

We  speak,  sir,  about  the  volume  of  money  and  about  its 
relation  to  the  wealth  and  capital  of  the  country.  Let  me  ask 
you,  sir,  for  a  moment,  what  would  occur  if  the  circulating 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       335 

medium  were  to  be  destroyed?  Suppose  that  the  gold  and  sil 
ver  were  to  be  withdrawn  suddenly  from  circulation  and  melted 
up  into  bars  and  ingots  and  buried  in  the  earth  from  which 
they  were  taken.  Suppose  that  all  the  paper  money,  silver 
certificates,  gold  certificates,  national  bank  notes,  Treasury 
notes,  were  stacked  in  one  mass  at  the  end  of  the  Treasury 
building  and  a  torch  applied  to  them  and  they  were  to  be 
destroyed  by  fire  and  their  ashes  spread,  like  the  ashes  of 
Wickliffe,  upon  the  Potomac,  to  be  spread  abroad  wide  as  its 
waters  be. 

What  would  be  the  effect?  Would  not  this  country  be 
worth  exactly  as  much  as  it  is  to-day?  Would  there  not  be 
just  as  many  acres  of  land,  as  many  houses,  as  many  farms,  as 
many  days  of  labor,  as  much  improved  and  unimproved  mer 
chandise,  and  as  much  property  as  there  is  to-day  ?  The  result 
would  be  that  commerce  would  languish,  the  sails  of  the  ships 
would  be  furled  in  the  harbors,  the  great  trains  would  cease  to 
to  run  to  and  fro  on  their  errands,  trade  would  be  reduced  to 
barter,  and,  the  people  finding  their  energies  languishing,  civil 
ization  itself  would  droop,  and  we  should  be  reduced  to  the 
condition  of  the  nomadic  wanderers  upon  the  primeval  plains. 

Suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  that,  instead  of  being  destroyed, 
all  the  money  in  this  country  were  to  be  put  in  the  possession 
of  a  single  man — gold  and  paper  and  silver — and  he  were  tc 
be  moored  in  mid- Atlantic  upon  a  raft  with  his  great  hoard, 
or  to  be  stationed  in  the  middle  of  Sahara's  desert,  without 
food  to  nourish,  or  shelter  to  cover,  or  the  means  of  transpor 
tation  to  get  away.  Who  would  be  the  richest  man,  the  pos 
sessor  of  the  gigantic  treasure  or  the  humblest  settler  upon  the 
plains  of  the  West,  with  a  dugout  to  shelter  him  and  with  corn- 
meal  and  water  enough  for  his  daily  bread? 


336  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Doubtless,  Mr.  President,  you  search  the  Scriptures  daily, 
and  are  therefore  familiar  with  the  story  of  those  depraved 
politicians  of  Judea  who  sought  to  entangle  the  Master  in  His 
talk  by  asking  Him  if  it  were  lawful  to  pay  tribute  to  Caesar 
or  not.  He,  perceiving  the  purpose  that  they  had  in  view, 
said  unto  them,  "Show  me  the  tribute  money."  And  they 
brought  Him  a  penny.  He  said,  "Whose  is  this  image  and 
superscription?"  And  they  replied,  "Caesar's."  And  He  said, 
1 '  Render  unto  Caesar  the  things  that  are  Caesar 's,  and  unto  God 
the  things  that  are  God's." 

I  hold,  Mr.  President,  between  my  thumb  and  finger  a  silver 
denarius,  or  "penny"  of  that  ancient  time,  perhaps  the  iden 
tical  coin  that  was  brought  by  the  hypocritical  Herodian, 
bearing  the  image  and  superscription  of  Caesar.  It  has  been 
money  for  more  than  twenty  centuries.  It  was  money  when 
Jesus  walked  the  waves,  and  in  the  tragic  hour  at  Gethsemane. 
Imperial  Caesar  is  "dead  and  turned  to  clay."  He  has  yielded 
to  a  mightier  conqueror,  and  his  eagles,  his  ensigns,  and  his 
trophies  are  indistinguishable  dust.  His  triumphs  and  his 
victories  are  a  school-boy's  tale.  Rome  herself  is  but  a  mem 
ory.  Her  marble  porticoes  and  temples  and  palaces  are  in 
ruins.  The  sluggish  monk  and  the  lazzy  lazzaroni  haunt  the 
Senate  House  and  the  Coliseum,  and  the  derisive  owl  wakes 
the  echoes  of  the  voiceless  Forum.  But  this  little  contem 
porary  disk  of  silver  is  money  still,  because  it  bears  the  image 
and  superscription  of  Caesar.  And,  sir,  it  will  continue  to 
be  money  for  twenty  centuries  more,  should  it  resist  so  long 
the  corroding  canker  and  the  gnawing  tooth  of  Time.  But  if 
one  of  these  pages  here  should  take  this  coin  to  the  railway 
track,  as  boys  sometimes  do,  and  allow  the  train  to  pass  over  it, 
in  one  single  instant  its  function  would  have  disappeared,  and 


"THE  IMAGE  AND  SUPERSCRIPTION  OF  CESAR."       337 

it  would  be  money  no  longer,  because  the  image  and  super 
scription  of  Caesar  would  have  disappeared. 

Mr.  President,  money  is  the  creation  of  law,  and  the  Amer 
ican  people  have  learned  that  lesson,  and  they  are  indifferent 
to  the  assaults,  they  are  indifferent  to  the  arguments,  they  are 
indifferent  to  the  aspersions  which  are  cast  upon  them  for 
demanding  that  the  law  of  the  United  States  shall  place  the 
image  and  superscription  of  Caesar  upon  silver  enough  and  gold 
enough  and  paper  enough  to  enable  them  to  transact  without 
embarrassment,  without  hindrance,  without  delay,  and  with 
out  impoverishment  their  daily  business  affairs,  and  that  shall 
give  them  a  measure  of  value  that  will  not  make  their  earnings 
and  their  belongings  the  sport  and  the  prey  of  speculators. 

Mr.  President,  this  contest  can  have  but  one  issue.  The 
experiment  that  has  begun  will  not  fail.  It  is  useless  to  deny 
that  many  irregularities  have  been  tolerated  here ;  that  many 
crimes  have  been  committed  in  the  sacred  name  of  liberty; 
that  our  public  affairs  have  been  scandalous  episodes  to  which 
every  patriotic  heart  reverts  with  distress ;  that  there  have  been 
envy  and  jealousy  in  high  places ;  that  there  have  been  treach 
erous  and  lying  platforms;  that  there  have  been  shallow  com 
promises  and  degrading  concessions  to  popular  errors;  but 
amid  all  these  disturbances,  amid  all  these  contests,  amid  all 
these  inexplicable  aberrations,  the  march  of  the  Nation  has 
been  steadily  onward. 

At  the  beginning  of  our  second  century  we  have  entered 
upon  a  new  social  and  political  movement  whose  results  cannot 
be  predicted,  but  which  are  certain  to  be  infinitely  momentous. 
That  the  progress  will  be  upward,  I  have  no  doubt.  Through 
the  long  and  desolate  tract  of  history;  through  the  seemingly 
aimless  struggles,  the  random  gropings  of  humanity,  the  tur- 


338  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

bulent  chaos  of  wrong,  injustice,  crime,  doubt,  want,  and 
wretchedness,  the  dungeon  and  the  block,  the  Inquisition  and 
the  stake,  the  trepidations  of  the  oppressed,  the  bloody  exul 
tations  and  triumphs  of  tyrants, 

"The  uplifted  ax,  the  agonizing  wheel, 
Luke's  iron  crown  and  Damien's  bed  of  steel," 

the  tendency  has  been  towards  the  light.  Out  of  every  conflict 
some  man  or  sect  or  nation  has  emerged  with  more  privileges, 
enlarged  opportunities,  purer  religion,  broader  liberty,  and 
greater  capacity  for  happiness;  and  out  of  this  conflict  in 
which  we  are  now  engaged  I  am  confident  finally  will  come 
liberty,  justice,  equality;  the  continental  unity  of  the  Amer 
ican  Republic,  the  social  fraternity  and  the  industrial  inde 
pendence  of  the  American  people.  [Applause  in  the  galleries.] 


THE  HUMOROUS  SIDE  OF  POLITICS. 


Charles  Sumner  had  no  more  sense  of  humor  than  a  hip 
popotamus,  but  there  was  something  excessively  humorous 
about  his  colossal  self-consciousness,  of  which  it  is  no  paradox 
to  say  he  was  apparently  unconscious. 

His  egotism  was  inordinately  vast,  though  innocent  in  its 
simplicity.  It  was  far  from  conceit,  and  led  to  no  disparage 
ment  of  his  associates.  Indeed,  I  doubt  if  he  ever  instituted 
comparisons. 

Probably  Grant,  whom  he  hated  and  abused,  came  the  near 
est  to  sizing  him  up  when  he  said:  "The  reason  Sumner 
doesn't  believe  in  the  Bible  is  because  he  didn't  write  it 
himself." 

He  had  large  intellectual  powers,  but  not  so  large  as  he 
imagined.  He  had  no  influence  on  legislation.  He  was  unable 
to  endure  opposition.  If  he  could  not  have  his  own  will,  he 
would  do  nothing.  But  this  is  not  intended  as  an  analysis  of 
his  work  or  his  character.  I  started  out  to  say  that  soon  after 
I  entered  the  Senate  we  were  riding  up  the  Avenue  in  a  street 
car,  and,  by  the  way  of  conversation,  he  asked  me  about  my 
predecessor,  Senator  Pomeroy,  who  had  met  with  an  accident 
politically.  He  spoke  of  his  early  fidelity  to  the  cause  of  free 
dom,  and  the  unusual  degree  to  which  he  held  the  confidence 
of  his  associates  till  the  impeachment  of  Andrew  Johnson. 

339 


340  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

"Indeed,"  he  continued,  with  great  gravity,  "had  he  died 
before  that  time,  Kansas  would  have  owed  him  a  monument, 
and  I  should  myself  have  pronounced  his  eulogy." 


The  self-consciousness  of  Roscoe  Conkling  was  quite  as 
egregious  as  that  of  Mr.  Sumner,  but  his  egotism  was  tinged 
with  vanity  and  compounded  with  scorn,  contempt,  and  dis 
dain.  He  was  a  past-master  in  "the  gentle  art  of  making  ene 
mies,"  and  well  versed  in  the  vocabulary  of  derision  and  hatred. 
Hamlet  might  have  had  him  in  mind  when,  in  his  soliloquy,  he 
mentioned,  among  other  things  that  make  life  not  worth  living, 
"the  proud  man's  contumely."  The  hinges  of  his  knees  were 
pregnant,  and  he  had  none  of  the  thrift  that  follows  fawning. 
When  I  first  knew  him,  he  was  in  the  meridian  of  his  great 
powers.  He  possessed  an  extraordinary  assemblage  of  phys 
ical  and  intellectual  attributes  that  made  him  by  far  the  most 
prominent,  picturesque,  and  impressive  figure  in  public  life. 

His  presence  was  noble  and  commanding;  his  voice  and 
elocution  were  superb;  his  bearing  and  address  somewhat  too 
formal,  but  marked  by  dignity  and  grace.  His  vocabulary 
was  rich  and  ornamental,  sometimes  almost  to  the  borders 
of  the  grotesque,  but  fertilized  with  apposite  quotations  and 
allusions  that  showed  wide  reading,  especially  in  poetry,  ro 
mance,  and  the  drama.  Some  hostile  critic  described  one  of 
his  speeches  as  a  "purple  earthquake  of  oratory."  But  he 
was  always  heard  with  delight  on  any  theme. 

Had  he  possessed  a  greater  flexibility  of  temper,  been  less 
inexorable  in  his  animosities,  and  learned  how  to  forget  where 
he  could  not  forgive,  there  was  no  height  he  might  not  have 
reached,  even  the  highest  in  the  people's  gift.  But  he  would 


THE  HUMOROUS  SIDE  OF  POLITICS.  341 

not  flatter  Neptune  for  his  trident,  nor  Jove  for  his  power  to 
thunder. 

In  that  state  of  moral  typhoid  which  always  follows  great 
wars,  an  era  of  profligacy,  of  sudden  wealth  at  the  price  of 
honor,  of  Credit  Mobilier  and  Star  Route  scandals,  he  was  not 
contaminated.  He  walked  through  the  furnace  with  no  smell 
of  fire  upon  his  garments. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  career  in  the  Senate  he  fell  out  with 
the  newspapers,  and  sometimes  when  he  arose  to  speak,  every 
reporter  in  the  press  gallery  closing  his  note-book,  the  whole 
crowd  would  rush  noisily  out  into  the  lobby,  leaving  every  seat 
without  an  occupant. 

He  flushed  at  the  insult,  but  speaking  of  journalism  after 
ward,  he  was  moved  to  remark,  in  his  propitiatory  way,  that 
the  only  people  in  the  w^orld  authorized  to  use  the  first  person 
plural,  "we,"  in  speaking  of  themselves,  were  "editors  and 
men  with  tapeworms." 

His  allusion  to  Governor  Cornell  as  "that  lizard  on  the 
hill,"  and  to  President  Arthur,  after  his  refusal  to  abdicate  in 
favor  of  Mr.  Conkling,  as  "the  prize  ox  in  American  politics," 
and  his  refusal  to  speak  for  Elaine  in  the  campaign  of  1884,  on 
the  ground  that  he  was  "not  engaged  in  criminal  practice," 
are  well-known  illustrations  of  his  methods  of  compelling  his 
political  associates  to  be  either  his  vassals  or  his  enemies. 

But  Jove  did  not  always  sit  on  Olympus.  Sometimes  he 
descended  to  the  plain,  though  never  quite  on  terms  of  abso 
lute  equality  with  mankind.  He  was  inclined  to  "jolly"  those 
whom  he  did  not  feel  disposed  to  bully. 

When  Thurman  once  asked  him,  in  a  debate  on  some  legal 
proposition,  why  he  kept  looking  at  him  all  the  time,  Conkling 
replied,  with  elaborate  raillery,  that  he  turned  to  him  as  the 


342  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

source  and  fountain  of  the  common  laws  as,  at  the  call  of  the 
muezzin,  the  Mussulman  turned  to  Mecca. 

Another  favorite  butt  for  his  chaff,  banter,  and  ridicule 
was  Judge  David  Davis,  a  native  of  Maryland,  who  migrated 
early  to  Illinois,  where  he  laid  the  foundation  of  an  immense 
fortune  by  sagacious  investments  in  farming  lands.  He  was 
an  original  friend  of  Lincoln's,  and  a  delegate  to  the  convention 
that  nominated  him  for  the  Presidency.  Riding  with  him 
once  from  Bloomington  to  Ouincy,  he  gave  me  a  most  inter 
esting  inside  history  of  the  movement  for  Lincoln,  one  of  the 
extraordinary  facts  being  that  the  entire  expense  of  his  nom 
ination,  including  headquarters,  telegraphing,  music,  fare  of 
delegations,  and  other  incidentals,  was  less  than  seven  hundred 
dollars. 

He  was  a  Falstaff  in  proportions  and  good  nature,  and 
the  best-guesser  in  American  politics.  Lincoln  appointed  him 
Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court  in  1862.  The  greater  part  of  his 
active  life  was  passed  on  the  bench,  where  he  was  accustomed 
to  have  the  last  word  and  to  delivering  opinions  rather  than 
defending  them,  which  is  not  a  good  preparation  for  the  delib 
erations  of  the  Senate. 

He  was  an  inveterate  compromiser  and  composer  of  strife, 
which  led  Conkling  to  allude  to  him  in  debate  as  "the  largest 
wholesale  and  retail  dealer  in  political  soothing  syrun  the  world 
had  ever  known." 

Later,  in  the  discussion  of  the  same  measure,  Davis  inter 
rupted  Conkling  by  way  of  correction  or  anticipation,  which 
Conkling  resented  by  quoting  ore  rotunda  two  lines  from  one 
of  Watts'  hymns: 

"He  knows  the  words  that  I  would  speak 
Ere  from  my  opening  lips  they  break." 


THE  HUMOROUS  SIDE  OF  POLITICS.  343 

To  Davis'  elephantine  attempt  to  smooth  over  his  break 
by  some  far-fetched  eulogy,  Conkling  replied : 

"Praise  undeserved  is  censure  in  disguise." 

The  stenographer  did  not  recognize  the  quotation,  so  that 
one  of  Alexander  Pope 's  most  polished  lines  stands  as  an  orig 
inal,  extemporaneous  phrase  of  Mr.  Conkling 's. 

It  seems  incredible  that  a  personage  of  such  vast  and 
unusual  powers,  who  for  twenty  years  was  a  most  prominent 
actor  in  the  great  drama  of  public  affairs,  who  filled  so  large 
a  space  in  the  thought  of  the  people,  v/ho  was  caricatured, 
lampooned,  praised,  and  reviled  without  stint  or  measure, 
should  have  faded  so  absolutely  from  the  memory  of  men. 
Even  to  those  of  his  contemporaries  who  survive,  he  has 
already  become  a  gorgeous  reminiscence. 

Patriotic,  arrayed  always  for  truth,  right,  and  justice,  his 
name  is  identified  with  no  great  measure,  and  his  life  seems  not 
so  much  an  actual  battle  with  hostile  powers  as  a  splendid 
scene  upon  the  stage,  of  which  the  swords  are  lath,  the  armor 
tinsel,  the  bastions  and  ramparts  painted  screens,  the  wounds 
and  blood  fictitious ;  on  which  victories  and  defeats  are  feigned, 
with  sheet-iron  thunder,  and  tempests  of  peas  and  lycopo- 
dium — and  the  curtain  falling  to  slow  music,  while  the  audience 
applauds  and  departs. 


William  Maxwell  Evarts  came  to  the  Senate  in  1885,  at  the 
age  of  sixty-seven.  He  was  a  candidate  in  1861,  and  waited 
twenty-four  years  for  the  realization  of  his  ambition.  The 
interval  was  opulent  in  noble  achievements  at  the  bar,  in 
statesmanship,  in  oratory,  and  the  highest  civic  and  social 
activities. 


344  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

He  was  Attorney-General  of  the  United  States  under 
Andrew  Johnson  and  his  counsel  on  his  impeachment.  He 
represented  the  Government  before  the  Geneva  tribunal  of 
arbitration  on  the  Alabama  claims.  He  was  the  leading  attor 
ney  for  President  Hayes,  in  behalf  of  the  Republican  party, 
before  the  Electoral  Commission,  and  Secretary  of  State  from 
1877  to  1881. 

He  was  a  scholar  without  pedantry,  and  a  man  of  the  world 
in  the  highest  sense,  without  cynicism  or  frivolity. 

There  is  always  a  dull  suspicion  in  leaden,  opaque,  and 
barren  minds  that  wit,  brilliancy,  and  imagination,  and  the 
corruscations  of  the  intellect  are  incompatible  with  great  men 
tal  power  and  solidity  of  judgment. 

Mr.  Evarts  refuted  this  fallacy,  for  in  addition  to  his  tri 
umphs  as  a  lawyer,  in  politics,  and  as  a  practical  man  of  affairs, 
he  was  altogether  the  most  brilliant  and  versatile  talker  of  his 
time. 

The  characteristic  of  his  conversation  was  a  genial  and  hu 
morous  urbanity.  He  never  wounded  or  stung.  He  seldom  told 
stories  or  related  anecdotes.  His  wit  was  like  a  spring  that 
makes  the  meadows  green.  He  appreciated  what  was  best  in 
society,  art,  literature,  and  life,  and  had  the  keenest  interest  in 
the  virtues  and  foibles  of  humanity.  His  manner  was  refined 
and  suave.  He  never  posed,  nor  monopolized,  nor  strained  for 
effect ;  and  as  he  never  hurt  self-love  by  irony,  nor  vanity  by 
ridicule  and  satire,  so  he  never  shocked  the  devout  by  profan 
ity,  nor  offended  the  modest  with  impudicity. 

Probably  the  mot  of  Mr.  Evarts  most  widely  flown  con 
cerns  the  apochryphal  feat  told  of  George  Washington  in  ' '  jerk 
ing"  a  silver  dollar  across  the  Rappahannock. 


THE  HUMOROUS  SIDE  OF  POLITICS.  345 

The  story  goes  that  a  party  of  tourists,  visiting  the  haunts 
of  Washington  in  Virginia,  came  to  the  spot,  where  the  anec 
dote  was  related  by  some  local  antiquary,  to  illustrate  the  pro 
digious  strength  of  the  man  whom  Providence  made  childless 
that  he  might  become  the  Father  of  His  Country. 

Aside  from  the  unlikelihood  that  the  thrifty  George  would 
throw  a  silver  dollar  over  the  river  when  a  pebble  would  have 
done  as  well,  the  distance  was  so  great  that  the  skeptics  were 
incredulous,  and  another  legend  seemed  on  the  edge  of  be 
ing  destroyed,  when  Mr.  Evarts  came  to  its  rescue  with  the 
suggestion  that  "a  dollar  went  much  farther  in  those  days 
than  now." 

The  explanation  is  so  simple  and  so  satisfactory  that  the 
wonder  is  that  it  occurred  to  no  one  before. 

Among  the  guests  at  a  dinner  to  Daniel  Webster  in  New 
York  was  Dr.  Benjamin  Brandreth,  the  inventor  of  a  cele 
brated  pill  known  by  his  name.  Mr.  Evarts  united  these  two 
great  men  in  a  volunteer  toast  to  "Daniel  Webster  and  Ben 
jamin  Brandreth,  the  pillars  of  the  Constitution." 

Objections  had  been  filed  with  the  Judiciary  Committee 
to  the  confirmation  of  a  nomination  on  account  of  the  disso 
lute  habits  of  the  appointee.  When  the  case  came  up  for  con 
sideration,  the  chairman  called  for  affidavits.  The  clerk  pro 
duced  a  number  from  the  files.  Consulting  his  docket,  Mr. 
Edmunds  thought  there  were  more,  and  others  were  found.  A 
search  disclosed  another  batch  that  had  been  overlooked  or 
mislaid. 

"The  papers  in  this  case,"  said  Mr.  Evarts,  "appear  to  be 
more  dissipated,  if  possible,  than  the  candidate." 

Mr.  Evarts  was  a  bon  vivant,  an  inveterate  diner-out,  and 
a  giver  of  most  elaborate  and  artistic  dinners  himself.  To  a 


346  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

lady  who  expressed  surprise  that  one  of  such  slender  frame 
and  fragile  physique  could  endure  so  many  feasts  with  their 
varying  viands  and  different  wines,  he  replied  that  it  was  not 
so  much  the  different  wines  that  gave  him  trouble  as  the 
indifferent  ones. 

President  Hayes  was  a  total  abstainer — at  home.  Scof 
fers  said  he  only  drank  the  "O.  P.  brands."  His  state  din 
ners,  otherwise  very  elegant  and  costly,  were  served  without 
wines.  The  onjy  concession  to  conviviality  was  the  Roman 
punch,  flavored  with  Jamaica  rum.  Kvarts  was  accustomed 
to  allude  to  this  course  as  "the  life-saving  station.'' 

Rising  to  address  informally  the  guests  at  a  Thanksgiving 
dinner,  he  began:  "You  have  been  giving  your  attention  to 
a  turkey  stuffed  with  sage.  You  are  now  about  to  consider 
a  sage  stuffed  with  turkey." 

When  he  was  Secretary  of  State  in  the  Cabinet  of  President 
Hayes,  the  struggle  for  places  in  the  diplomatic  service  was 
very  active.  As  he  was  leaving  the  elevator  at  the  close  of  a 
very  busy  day,  he  said  the  conductor  since  noon  had  "taken  up 
a  very  large  collection  for  foreign  missions";  and  when  asked 
what  had  been  done,  he  replied:  "Many  called,  but  few 
chosen." 

As  an  orator,  Mr.  Evarts  was  not  limpid.  But  he  con 
founded  the  critics  who  condemned  his  long  sentences  by  say 
ing  that,  so  far  as  his  observation  went,  the  people  who  objected 
to  long  sentences  belonged  to  the  criminal  classes. 

General  Grant  was  popularly  supposed  to  be  habitually 
grave,  reserved,  and  taciturn,  but  on  occasion  was  very  viva 
cious  in  conversation,  with  a  keen  sense  of  dry,  quiet  humor. 


THE  HUMOROUS  SIDE  OF  POLITICS.  347 

One  evening,  after  a  stag  dinner  at  the  White  House,  the 
company  assembled  in  the  library  to  smoke.  Talk  fell  upon 
the  happiest  period  of  life — childhood,  youth,  manhood,  age. 
Grant  listened,  but  said  nothing  till  asked  for  his  opinion. 

"Well,"  he  replied,  after  a  pause,  "I  believe  I  would  like 
to  be  born  again,"  which  indicated  that  he  had  found  existence 
enjoyable  all  the  way  through. 

One  of  Grant's  Secretaries  of  the  Navy  was  George  M. 
Robeson,  of  New  Jersey,  for  whom  Senator  Carpenter,  of  Wis 
consin,  a  great  jurist  and  advocate,  conceived  a  violent  dislike. 
His  mildest  definition  of  Robeson  was  that  he  was  "a  great 
lawyer  among  sailors,  and  a  great  sailor  among  lawyers." 

Some  one  took  Thurman  to  task  for  having  referred  rather 
contemptuously  to  the  beneficiaries  of  a  certain  measure  as 
"things." 

"Things!"  replied  Thurman,  testily,  "why,  we  are  all 
things — "  "  'To  all  men,'  "  interrupted  Mr.  Edmunds,  before 
he  could  finish  his  sentence,  and  the  discussion  ended. 

Holman,  of  Indiana,  for  many  years  waged  vigilant  and 
unrelenting  war  on  amendments  to  appropriation  bills,  which 
gave  him  the  name  of  "The  Watchdog  of  the  Treasury."  He 
was  very  strong  in  his  district,  and  had  an  unusually  long  ser 
vice,  which  gave  him  great  power  and  influence  in  the  House 
by  his  knowledge  of  the  rules  and  practice. 

Toward  the  end  of  his  term  an  amendment  was  offered  in 
which  a  near  relative  was  much  interested.  The  familiar  "I 
object"  was  not  heard,  and  the  amendment  went  through  with 
his  support ;  whereupon  a  member  sitting  near  exclaimed : 

"  '  'Tis  sweet  to  hear  the  honest  watchdog's  bark 

Bay  deep-mouthed  welcome  as  we  draw  near  home!'  " 

Nothing  brighter  and  more  apt  has  been  said  in  either 
house  of  Congress  since  the  inauguration  of  Washington. 


FAMOUS  FEUDS. 


I. 

CONKLING,  ELAINE,  LAMAR. 

On  the  1 8th  of  June,  1879,  the  second  debate  of  the  extra 
session  on  the  Army  Bill  was  in  progress  in  the  Senate. 

The  Democratic  majority  was  strenuously  pressing  the  bill 
to  its  passage,  with  a  clause  prohibiting  any  expenditure  of 
the  appropriation  for  the  payment  of  troops  as  police  to  keep 
the  peace  at  the  polls. 

The  Republican  minority,  foreseeing  defeat,  had  resorted 
to  filibustering,  dilatory  proceedings,  and  motions  to  adjourn. 
Mr.  Lamar  took  no  part  in  the  debate,  although  voting  uni 
formly  with  his  party. 

During  the  morning  hour,  before  the  Army  Bill  was  taken 
up  for  consideration,  Lamar  called  up  the  bill  to  create  a  Mis 
sissippi  River  Commission,  in  which  he  was  much  interested, 
reported  from  the  committee  of  which  he  was  chairman. 

The  consideration  of  this  measure  consumed  the  morn 
ing  hour,  and  the  time  appointed  for  taking  up  the  Army  Bill 
as  the  special  order  arrived.  Mr.  Lamar  suggested  that  the 
Commission  Bill  could  be  disposed  of  in  a  few  minutes,  and 
asked  unanimous  consent  for  that  purpose. 

Mr.  Withers,  of  Virginia,  who  had  the  Army  Bill  in  charge, 
had  given  notice  that  he  would  ask  for  a  final  vote  before 

adjournment  that  day,  and  declined  to  consent  to  Mr.  Lamar's 

348 


FAMOUS  FEUDS.  349 

request,  unless  it  was  agreed  that  a  vote  on  the  Commission 
Bill  should  be  taken  without  further  discussion. 

Mr.  Allison  suggested,  "In  a  few  minutes." 

Mr.  Withers  insisted  upon  his  rights  under  the  rules.  Mr. 
Conkling  asked  if,  notwithstanding  unanimous  consent  was 
given  to  Mr.  Lamar  's  request,  the  Senator  from  Virginia  would 
insist  upon  a  vote  that  day  on  the  Army  Bill.  Mr.  Withers 
replied  that  he  would.  Mr.  Conkling  then  suggested  that  the 
Senator  from  Mississippi  have  unanimous  consent  to  conclude 
the  consideration  of  his  bill,  and  if,  when  a  reasonable  hour 
of  adjournment  had  been  reached,  there  were  senators  who 
wanted  to  be  heard  on  the  Army  Bill,  the  vote  should  be 
postponed  until  the  following  day. 

Mr.  Withers  insisted  that  it  was  important  that  a  vote 
should  be  had  that  day.  Mr.  Conkling  did  not  think  this  fair. 
Senator  Gordon,  of  Georgia,  explained  that  the  Commission 
Bill  would  not  take  more  than  ten  or  fifteen  minutes.  Mr. 
Conkling  then  stated  that,  for  himself,  he  would  consent  and 
trust  to  the  other  side  of  the  chamber,  when  the  ordinary  hour 
of  adjournment  was  reached,  that  if  any  senator  desired  to  be 
heard,  he  should  not  be^cut  oflfor  pushed  into  the  night. 

Mr.  Withers  here  interrupted,  and  said:  "The  Senator 
must  not  trust  to  my  courtesy  in  the  matter,  if  he  alludes  to 
me." 

Mr.  Conkling  retorted,  with  contemptuous  irony:  "I  did 
not  indicate  the  Senator  from  Virginia  as  one  to  whose  courtesy 
I  would  trust." 

After  further  desultory  discussion,  Mr.  Lamar  limited  his 
request  to  twenty  minutes,  and  at  last  unanimous  consent  was 
given.  The  bill  was  quickly  disposed  of  and  the  Army  Bill 
was  immediately  taken  up. 


350  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

The  legislative  session  was  prolonged  until  noon  of  June  19. 
Late  in  the  sitting — it  must  have  been  about  midnight — a 
wrangle  occurred  between  Senators  Elaine  and  Saulsbury,  in 
which  the  latter  charged  the  former  and  his  party  with  obstruct 
ing  legislation. 

At  this  juncture  Senator  Conkling  arose  and  referred  to 
Mr.  Lamar's  request  of  that  morning,  and  said  that  he  had 
given  his  consent,  relying  on  the  courtesy  of  Democratic  sen 
ators  that  the  final  vote  would  not  be  pressed  on  the  Army  Bill 
that  day. 

He  continued:  "Looking  to  that  side,  I  received  a  nod, 
not  from  one,  not  from  two,  not  from  three,  but  from  five 
Democratic  senators." 

Upon  these  assurances  he  had  offered  a  motion  to  adjourn, 
assuming  that  there  would  be  no  objection. 

He  concluded  by  saying:  "The  Senator  from  Virginia 
rose  with  such  a  disclaimer  as  he  had  a  right  to  make  in  order 
that  he  might  keep  within  the  bounds  of  his  instructions  from 
the  committee ;  but  when  I  heard  every  Democratic  senator 
vote  to  commit  such  an  outrage  as  that  upon  the  minority  of 
this  body  and  upon  the  Senator  from  Wisconsin,  I  do  not  deny 
that  I  felt  my  full  share  of  indignation ;  and  during  this  even 
ing,  Mr.  President,  I  wish  to  assume  all  my  own  responsibility, 
and  so  much  more  as  any  Republican  senator  feels  irksome  to 
him,  for  what  has  taken  place.  I  have  endeavored  to  show 
this  proud  and  domineering  majority — determined,  apparently, 
to  ride  rough-shod  over  the  rights  of  the  minority — that  they 
can  not  and  they  should  not  do  it.  But  I  am  ready  to  be 
deemed  responsible  in  advance  for  the  assurance  that  while  I 
remain  a  member  of  this  body,  and,  at  all  events,  until  we  have 
a  previous  question,  no  minority  shall  be  gagged  down  or  throt- 


FAMOUS  FEUDS.  351 

tied  or  insulted  by  such  a  proceeding  as  this.  I  say,  Mr.  Pres 
ident,  and  I  measure  my  expression,  that  it  was  an  act  not  only 
insulting,  but  an  act  of  bad  faith.  I  mean  that." 

It  would  be  quite  difficult  to  exaggerate  the  air  of  elaborate 
and  haughty  insolence  with  which  this  arraignment  and  threat 
was  delivered.  The  concentrated  and  sonorous  contempt  of 
his  denunciation  of  the  majority,  the  bitter  scorn  of  his  con 
tumelious  epithets  passed  all  bounds.  It  was  unparliamentary 
and  beyond  the  limits  of  debate,  but  he  was  not  called  to 
order. 

It  gave  Mr.  Lamar  the  opportunity  for  which  he  had  been 
waiting  so  long.  He  rose  to  a  personal  statement,  and  said: 
"I  am  not  aware  of  anything  that  occurred  which  would  pro 
duce  such  an  impression.  If  I  had,  although  I  would  not 
have  been  instrumental  consciously  in  producing  such  an 
impression,  I  should  have  felt  myself  bound  by  it,  and  would 
have  made  the  motion  for  an  adjournment,  in  order  to  give 
the  Senator  from  Wisconsin  an  opportunity  to  discuss  this  bill. 

' '  With  reference  to  the  charge  of  bad  faith  that  the  Senator 
from  New  York  has  intimated  toward  those  of  us  who  have 
been  engaged  in  opposing  these  motions  to  adjourn,  I  have  only 
to  say  that  if  I  am  not  superior  to  such  attacks  from  such  a 
source,  I  have  lived  in  vain.  It  is  not  my  habit  to  indulge  in 
personalites ;  but  I  desire  to  say  here  to  the  Senator,  that  in 
intimating  anything  inconsistent,  as  he  has  done,  with  perfect 
good  faith,  I  pronounce  his  statement  a  falsehood,  which  I 
repel  with  all  the  unmitigated  contempt  that  I  feel  for  the 
author  of  it." 

This  was  a  solar-plexus  blow.  Mr.  Conkling  had  contrib 
uted  much  to  the  acrimony  and  exasperation  of  the  time.  His 
attitude  toward  the  Southern  Democracy  had  been  that  of 


352  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

unrelenting  severity.  He  was  aggressively  radical.  He  advo 
cated  drastic  measures  for  the  protection  of  the  negro  and  the 
assertion  of  the  national  authority.  His  manner  was  often 
offensively  dictatorial  and  domineering.  He  trampled  upon 
the  sensibilities  of  his  adversaries  like  a  rhinoceros  crashing 
through  a  tropical  jungle.  They  grew  restive,  and  there  were 
subterranean  rumors  from  time  to  time  that  they  ' '  had  it  in  " 
for  Conkling  and  intended  to  "do  him  up"  at  the  earliest 
opportunity. 

In  the  code  of  honor,  so  called,  to  give  the  lie  is  equivalent 
to  a  blow.  It  is  the  supreme  verbal  affront,  and  can  be  expi 
ated  only  by  blood.  It  is  the  intolerable  stigma.  The  man 
who  is  branded  as  a  liar  publicly  is  in  a  cul-de-sac.  He  can 
go  no  further.  He  must  wear  the  epithet  or  fight.  To  bite 
the  thumb,  or  thrust  out  the  tongue  and  say,  "Tu  quoque,"  does 
not  shift  the  burden  of  dishonor  in  the  estimation  of  gentlemen. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  six  years  that  I  had  known  him, 
Conkling  was,  figuratively  speaking,  "knocked  out."  Accus 
tomed  to  obsequious  adulation  which  had  swollen  his  egre 
gious  vanity  to  the  point  of  tumefaction,  his  habitual  attitude 
was  that  of  supercilious  disdain. 

He  was  by  far  the  most  picturesque  and  commanding  figure 
of  an  historic  epoch. 

His  self-consciousness  was  inordinate,  but  justified  by  a 
magnificent  presence,  by  the  possession  of  extraordinary  intel 
lectual  gifts,  by  national  reputation,  and  the  devotion  of  a 
great  constituency. 

In  the  Senate  he  had  no  rivals.  No  one  challenged  him. 
If  any  differed  with  him,  it  was  with  deference,  almost  with 
timidity.  He  seemed  indifferent  alike  to  approbation  or  cen 
sure.  Like  Wolsey,  he  was 


FAMOUS  FEUDS.  353 

"Lofty  and  sour  to  them  that  loved  him  not; 
To  those  men  that  sought  him,  sweet  as  summer." 

That  this  Alcibiades  of  Republicanism  should  be  called  a 
liar  and  denounced  as  an  object  of  unmitigated  contempt  in 
the  forum  of  his  most  imposing  triumphs,  before  crowded 
galleries,  by  a  "Confederate  brigadier,"  was  an  indignity  that 
seemed  incredible.  Had  a  dynamite  bomb  exploded  in  the 
gangway  of  the  brilliantly  lighted  chamber,  the  consternation 
could  hardly  have  been  more  bewildering. 

Instantaneous  silence  fell.  The  gasping  spectators  held 
their  breath.  Mr.  Conkling  acted  like  one  stunned.  He  be 
came  pallid  and  then  flushed  again.  His  disconcertion  was 
extreme.  He  hesitated  and  floundered  pitiably.  He  pre 
tended  at  first  not  to  have  heard  the  insult,  and  asked  Lamar 
in  effect  to  repeat  it. 

He  said:  "Mr.  President,  I  was  diverted  during  the  com 
mencement  of  a  remark  the  culmination  of  which  I  heard  from 
the  member  from  Mississippi.  If  I  understood  him  aright,  he 
intended  to  impute,  and  did,  in  plain  and  unparliamentary 
language,  impute  to  me  an  intentional  misstatement.  The 
Senator  does  not  disclaim  that?" 

Mr.  LAMAR:  "I  will  state  what  I  intended,  so  that  there 
may  be  no  mistake — " 

The  Presiding  Officer :  ' '  Does  the  Senator  from  New  York 
yield?" 

Mr.  LAMAR:     "All  that  I — " 

The  Presiding  Officer:  "Does  the  Senator  from  New  York 
yield  to  the  Senator  from  Mississippi?" 

Mr.  LAMAR:  "He  appealed  to  me  to  know,  and  I  will 
give-" 


354  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

The  Presiding  Officer :  ' '  The  Senator  from  New  York  has 
the  floor.  Does  he  yield  to  the  Senator  from  Mississippi?" 

As  he  had  asked  Lamar  a  question  which  that  senator  was 
endeavoring  to  answer,  the  interrogations  of  the  Chair  seemed 
superfluous,  but  they  afforded  time  for  reflection,  and  at  last 
Mr.  Conkling  said :  ' '  I  am  willing  to  respond  to  the  Chair.  I 
shall  respond  to  the  Chair  in  due  time.  Whether  I  am  willing 
to  respond  to  the  member  from  Mississippi  depends  entirely 
upon  what  that  member  intends  to  say,  and  what  he  did  say. 
For  the  time  being  I  do  not  choose  to  hold  any  communication 
with  him.  The  Chair  understands  me  now;  I  will  proceed. 

' '  I  understood  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  to  state  in  plain 
and  unparliamentary  language  that  the  statement  of  mine  to 
which  he  referred  was  a  falsehood,  if  I  caught  his  word  aright. 
Mr.  President,  this  is  not  the  place  to  measure  with  any  man 
the  capacity  to  violate  decency,  to  violate  the  rules  of  the  Sen 
ate,  or  to  commit  any  of  the  improprieties  of  life.  I  have 
only  to  say  that  if  the  Senator — the  member  from  Mississippi- 
did  impute,  or  intended  to  impute,  to  me  a  falsehood,  noth 
ing  except  the  fact  that  this  is  the  Senate  would  prevent  my 
denouncing  him  as  a  blackguard  and  a  coward."  (Applause 
in  the  galleries.) 

The  Presiding  Officer:  "There  should  be  no  cheering  in 
the  galleries.  If  there  shall  be  any  more,  the  Chair  will  order 
the  galleries  to  be  cleared.  The  Senator  from  New  York  will 
proceed." 

Mr.  CONKLING:  "Let  me  be  more  specific,  Mr.  President. 
Should  the  member  from  Mississippi,  except  in  the  presence  of 
the  Senate,  charge  me  by  intimation  or  otherwise  with  false 
hood,  I  would  denounce  him  as  a  blackguard,  as  a  coward, 
and  a  liar;  and  understanding  what  he  said  as  I  have,  the  rules 


FAMOUS  FEUDS.  355 

and  the  proprieties  of  the  Senate  are  the  only  restraint  upon 
me.  I  do  not  think  I  need  say  anything  else,  Mr.  President." 

Mr.  LAMAR  concluded :  "  I  have  only  to  say,  that  the  Senator 
from  New  York  understood  me  correctly.  I  did  mean  to  say 
just  precisely  the  words,  and  all  that  they  imported.  I  beg 
pardon  of  the  Senate  for  the  unparliamentary  language.  It 
was  very  harsh;  it  was  very  severe;  it  was  such  as  no  good 
man  would  deserve  and  no  brave  man  would  wear." 

Mr.  Conkling  never  seemed  quite  the  same  afterward.  His 
prestige  was  gone.  His  enemies — and  they  were  many — 
exulted  in  his  discomfiture.  Two  years  later  he  resigned  his 
seat  in  the  Senate,  and  his  life  afterward  was  a  prolonged  mon 
ologue  of  despair.  To-day  he  is  a  splendid  reminiscence.  To 
the  next  generation  his  fame  will  be  a  tradition. 


But  of  all  the  feuds  of  the  century,  the  most  far-reaching 
in  its  tragic  consequences  was  the  political  duel  between  Conk- 
ling  and  Elaine,  which  began  with  their  appearance  in  Congress 
and  ended  only  with  their  lives.  They  were  rivals  and  foes 
from  the  start.  Of  about  the  same  age,  they  both  aspired  to 
leadership,  but  in  temperament  and  intellectual  habits  they 
had  nothing  in  common.  They  were  altogether  the  most 
striking  personalities  of  their  generation.  They  were  enemies 
by  instinct.  Their  hostility  was  automatic. 

Their  first  altercation  occurred  April  30,  1866,  in  a  debate 
on  the  charges  against  Provost-Marshal  General  Fry,  in  which 
it  was  alleged  that  Mr.  Conkling,  while  a  member  of  Congress, 
had  taken  a  fee  of  $3,000  as  a  judge-advocate. 

During  the  discussion,  which  was  extremely  sensational, 
Mr.  Elaine  said:  "I  do  not  happen  to  possess  the  volubility 


356  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

of  the  gentleman  from  the  Utica  District.  It  took  him  thirty 
minutes  the  other  day  to  explain  that  an  alteration  in  the 
reporter's  notes  for  the  Globe  was  no  alteration  at  all;  and  I 
do  not  think  that  he  convinced  the  House  after  all.  And  it 
has  taken  him  an  hour  to-day  to  explain  that  while  he  and 
General  Fry  have  been  at  swords'  points  for  a  year,  there  has 
been  no  difficulty  at  all  between  them.  The  gentleman  from 
New  York  has  attempted  to  pass  off  his  appearance  in  this 
case  as  simply  the  appearance  of  counsel.  I  want  to  read 
again  for  the  information  of  the  House  the  appointment  under 
which  the  gentleman  from  New  York  appeared  as  the  pros 
ecutor  on  the  part  of  the  Government." 

Mr.  Conkling  replied  that  no  commission  had  been  issued 
to  him  by  the  Jud  je-Advocate  General. 

Mr.  Elaine  interrupted,  and  the  Speaker  inquired:  "Does 
the  gentleman  from  New  York  yield  to  the  gentleman  from 
Maine?" 

To  this  Mr.  Conkling  savagely  answered:  "No,  sir;  1  do 
not  wish  to  have  anything  to  do  with  the  gentleman  from 
Maine,  not  even  so  much  as  to  yield  him  the  floor." 

"All  right,"  said  Mr.  Blaine,  and  Mr.  Conkling  resumed 
and  presently  said:  "One  thing  further:  If  the  member 
from  Maine  had  the  least  idea  how  profoundly  indifferent  I  am 
to  his  opinion  upon  the  subject  which  he  has  been  discussing, 
or  upon  any  other  subject  personal  to  me,  I  think  he  would 
hardly  take  the  trouble  to  rise  here  and  express  his  opinion." 

As  soon  as  he  obtained  the  floor,  Mr.  Blaine  responded : 
"As  to  the  gentleman's  cruel  sarcasm,  I  hope  he  will  not  be 
too  severe.  The  contempt  of  that  large-minded  gentleman 
is  so  wilting;  his  haughty  disdain,  his  grandiloquent  swell, 
his  majestic,  supereminent,  overpowering,  turkey-gobbler  strut 


FAMOUS  FEUDS.  357 

has  been  so  crushing  to  myself  and  all  the  members  of  this 
House,  that  I  know  it  was  an  act  of  the  greatest  temerity  for 
me  to  venture  upon  a  controversy  with  him.  But,  sir,  I  know 
who  is  responsible  for  all  this.  I  know  that  within  the  last 
five  weeks,  as  members  of  the  House  will  recollect,  an  extra 
strut  has  characterized  the  gentleman's  bearing.  It  is  not 
his  fault.  It  is  the  fault  of  another.  That  gifted  and  sat 
irical  writer,  Theodore  Tilton,  of  the  New  York  Independent, 
spent  some  weeks  recently  in  this  city.  His  letters  published 
in  that  paper  embraced,  with  many  serious  statements,  a  little 
jocose  satire,  a  part  of  which  was  the  statement  that  the  man 
tle  of  the  late  Winter  Davis  had  fallen  upon  the  member  from 
New  York.  The  gentleman  took  it  seriously,  and  it  has  given 
his  strut  additional  pomposity.  It  is  strikfcjg.  '  Hyperion  to 
a  satyr,'  Thersites  to  Hercules,  mud  to  marble,  dunghill  to 
diamond,  a  singed  cat  to  a  Bengal  tiger,  a  whining  puppy  to  a 
roaring  lion.  Shade  of  the  mighty  Davis,  forgive  the  almost 
profanation  of  that  jocose  satire!" 

Conkling  was  a  good  hater,  who  neither  forgave  nor  forgot. 
He  never  spoke  to  Blaine  afterward,  nor  recognized  his  exist 
ence.  The  "turkey-gobbler  strut"  and  the  "Hyperion  curl" 
stuck  to  him  and  became  the  staples  of  the  cartoonists.  Mutual 
friends  endeavored  to  bring  about  a  meeting  and  reconcilia 
tion  in  the  campaign  of  1884,  but  in  reply  to  the  request  that 
he  should  make  one  speech  for  Blaine,  who  was  the  Republican 
candidate,  Conkling  replied,  with  diabolical  sarcasm,  that  he 
had  given  up  criminal  practice. 

Froude,  in  his  "Life  of  Caesar,"  says  that  the  quarrels  of 
political  leaders  have  always  given  direction  to  the  current  of 
history. 


358  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Conkling's  implacable  hatred  defeated  the  nomination  of 
Elaine  in  1876,  and  his  election  in  1887.  Indirectly  it  caused 
the  death  of  Garfield,  and  prevented  the  renomination  of 
Arthur,  whom  he  described  as  "the  prize  ox  in  American 
politics." 

The  chief  actors  in  this  stupendous  drama  have  all  crossed 
the  frontier  of  the  dark  kingdom.  After  life's  fitful  fever, 
they  sleep  well  or  ill ;  but  whether  well  or  ill,  they  sleep.  They 
played  mighty  parts.  They  appealed  to  the  passions  of  a  ma 
jestic  audience.  The  curtain  has  fallen;  the  lights  are  out; 
the  orchestra  has  gone ;  and  upon  another  stage  we  have  the 
continuous  performance,  vaudeville  and  marionettes. 


II. 

LAMAR  AND  HOAR. 

Political  passion  in  the  United  States  culminated  in  the 
Presidential  campaign  of  1876-77. '  The  fatal  blunders  of 
Reconstruction  left  the  South  like  a  pyramid  poised  on  its 
apex  instead  of  its  base.  The  unstable  fabric,  supported  by 
sword  and  bayonet,  stood  for  a  while,  and,  when  these  were 
withdrawn,  fell  in  a  crash  of  blood  and  flame  that  came  near 
engulfing  our  whole  system  in  the  vortex  of  its  own  destruction. 

The  whites  of  the  South,  organizing  into  White  Leagues 
and  Ku-Klux  Klans,  overthrew  the  State  governments  set  up  by 
negro  majorities  and  their  Northern  allies,  and  sent  the  civil 
and  military  leaders  of  the  Confederacy  to  the  Senate  and 
House  of  Representatives. 

The  exasperation  of  the  Republicans  of  the  North  was 
intensified  bv  the  consciousness  that  thev  had  "nursed  the 


FAMOUS  FEUDS.  359 

pinion  that  impelled  the  steel,"  and  it  seemed  for  a  time  as  if 
a  renewal  of  civil  strife  were  inevitable. 

Collision  between  the  partisans  of  Hayes  and  Tilden  was 
averted  by  the  invention  of  the  Electoral  Commission,  a  con 
trivance  supported  by  each  party  in  the  hope  of  cheating  the 
other,  and  which  ended  in  defrauding  both;  but  the  rancor 
and  asperity  of  debate  did  not  subside  until  the  inauguration 
of  Garfield  in  the  year  1881. 

Prominent  among  the  Southern  Democrats  in  the  Senate 
was  L.  Q.  C.  Lamar,  of  Mississippi.  He  had  been  a  member 
of  Congress  before  the  war,  and  was  an  implacable  Secessionist. 

Though  not  a  soldier,  his  relations  with  the  Confederacy 
were  confidential  and  important.  He  apparently  accepted 
the  consequences  of  the  surrender,  and  attempted  the  perplex 
ing  role  of  propitiating  the  North  and  retaining  the  confidence 
of  the  South. 

He  pronounced  a  eulogy  upon  Charles  Sumner,  which 
caused  his  fidelity  to  the  lost  cause  to  be  suspected  at  home, 
and  therefore  omitted  no  appropriate  opportunity  to  reinstate 
himself  by  asserting  his  constancy  to  his  original  conviction, 
which  he  did  faithfully. 

He  had  the  singular  fortune  to  be  appointed  by  President 
Cleveland  a  Justice  of  the  Supreme  Court,  without  ever  having 
tried  a  reported  cause  in  any  tribunal,  and  without  having 
*'ecn  admitted  as  an  attorney  to  practice  in  the  court  of  which 
he  became  a  member.  His  career  was  unique  in  American 
politics. 

Mr.  Lamar  was  not  what  Mrs.  Partington  called  a  "fluid 
speaker."  His  aspect  was  sombre  and  dejected.  He  usually 
seemed  sunken  in  reverie  and  abstraction.  He  was  absent- 
minded.  He  had  no  facility  in  oil-hand,  extemporaneous 


360  JOHN  JAMES 

debate.  He  was  a  dealer  in  oratorical  shelf-goods.  His  venom 
was  not  secreted,  but  distilled.  He  prepared  his  retorts  in 
advance,  and  waited  for  the  occasion  to  use  them.  He  employed 
fixed  ammunition.  His  speeches,  which  were  infrequent,  were 
written  out  and  committed  to  memory;  but,  having  rich  rhet 
oric  and  dramatic  energy  in  delivery,  he  was  an  exceedingly 
effective  orator. 

The  Legislature  of  Mississippi  censured  and  requested  him 
to  resign  on  account  of  his  position  o.n  financial  questions.  At 
the  next  State  convention,  at  Jackson,  he  made  his  defense, 
and  one  of  his  colleagues  told  me  that  Lamar  came  to  his  room 
in  a  hotel  the  preceding  midnight  for  the  benefit  of  his  judg 
ment,  and,  standing  before  this  single  auditor,  for  two  hours 
rehearsed  in  a  loud  voice  his  entire  address,  tones,  gestures,  and 
all,  without  once  referring  to  his  manuscript,  exactly  as  he  deliv 
ered  it  before  the  convention  the  following  day. 


On  the  first  of  March,  1879,  the  bill  granting  service  pen 
sions  to  the  surviving  veterans  of  the  Mexican  War  was  being 
considered  in  the  Senate. 

It  was  opposed  by  many  Republicans  on  the  ground  that 
it  would  place  on  the  roll  ex-Confederate  soldiers  who  had 
fought  in  the  war  with  Mexico. 

Mr.  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts,  offered  an  amendment  to  the 
bill  in  the  following  words:  "Provided  further,  that  no  pen 
sion  shall  ever  be  paid  under  this  act  to  Jefferson  Davis,  the 
late  President  of  the  so-called  Confederacy." 

This  precipitated  a  crisis.  Every  Southern  senator  arose 
in  his  place,  one  after  the  other,  and  said  in  substance  that 
Jefferson  Davis  stood  in  the  same  position  they  stood  in,  and 


FAMOUS  FEUDS.  361 

that  every  man  in  the  South  who  believed  in  secession  stood 
in,  and  that  if  Jefferson  Davis  was  a  traitor,  they  were  traitors. 

Senator  Garland,  of  Arkansas,  in  the  course  of  his  eulogium, 
alluded  to  the  courage  which  Jefferson  Davis  had  exhibited  on 
Mexican  battlefields,  to  which  Mr.  Hoar  meekly  responded: 
"Two  of  the  bravest  officers  in  our  Revolutionary  War  were 
Aaron  Burr  and  Benedict  Arnold." 

This  was  the  red  rag.  Mr.  Lamar,  tremulous  with  indig 
nation,  sprang  to  his  feet,  and  said:  "It  is  with  supreme 
reluctance  that  I  rise  to  say  a  word  on  this  subject.  I  must 
confess  my  surprise  and  regret  that  the  Senator  from  Massa 
chusetts  should  have  wantonly,  without  provocation,  flung  this 
insult." 

Bang  went  the  gavel.  Senator  Edmunds,  of  Vermont,  was 
in  the  chair.  He  presided  like  a  school  -  master.  He  said, 
with  severe  emphasis:  "The  Senator  from  Mississippi  is  out 
of  order.  He  cannot  impute  to  any  senator  either  wantonness 
or  insult." 

Mr.  Lamar  stopped,  looked  inquiringly  at  the  Chair,  and 
sneeringly  said:  "I  stand  corrected.  I  suppose  it  is  in  per 
fect  order  to  insult  certain  other  senators,  but  they  cannot  be 
characterized  by  those  who  received  the  blow." 

This  made  the  breach  worse,  and  the  Chair,  rising,  called 
Lamar  to  order,  and  directed  him  to  take  his  seat  until  the 
question  of  order  was  decided. 

Mr.  Lamar  shortly  arose  again,  and  said:  "The  observa 
tions  of  the  Senator  from  Mississippi,  in  his  own  opinion,  are 
not  only  in  order,  but  perfectly  and  absolutely  true,"  and 
thereupon  appealed  from  the  decision  of  the  Chair. 

The  Chair  submitted  the  question  to  the  Senate.  His  de 
cision  was  overruled;  whereupon  Mr.  Edmunds  said:  "The 


362  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

judgment  of  the  Chair  is  reversed.  The  Senate  decides  that 
the  words  uttered  by  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  are  in  order, 
and  the  Senator  from  Mississippi  will  now  proceed." 

Mr.  L,amar  resumed,  very  slowly  and  deliberately,  with  no 
apparent  agitation,  and  said:  "Now,  Mr.  President,  having 
been  decided  by  my  associates  to  have  been  in  order  in  the 
language  I  used,  I  desire  to  say  that  if  it  is  at  all  offensive  or 
unacceptable  to  any  member  of  this  Senate,  the  language  is 
withdrawn ;  for  it  is  not  my  purpose  to  offend  or  stab  the  sen 
sibilities  of  any  of  my  associates  on  this  floor.  But  what  I 
meant  by  that  remark  was  this :  Jefferson  Davis  stands  in  pre 
cisely  the  position  that  I  stand  in,  that  every  Southern  man 
who  believed  in  the  right  of  a  State  to  secede  stands  in." 

Senator  Hoar  interrupted  to  explain  that  in  making  his 
motion  for  the  amendment  offered  he  had  not  thought  that 
anyone  stood  in  the  same  position  as  Mr.  Davis.  "I  should 
not  have  moved,"  said  he,  "to  except  the  gentleman  from 
Mississippi  from  the  pension-roll." 

Mr.  Lamar  replied  by  insisting  that  there  was  no  difference. 
He  defended  Jefferson  Davis  from  the  charge  of  treason  which 
had  been  urged  in  the  debate,  and  said:  "I  say  this  as  a 
Union,  man  this  day.  He  [Mr.  Hoar]  intended  to  affix  (I  will 
not  say  that  he  intended,  but  the  inevitable  effect  of  it  was  to 
affix)  upon  this  aged  man,  this  man  broken  in  fortune,  suf 
fering  from  bereavement,  an  epithet  of  odium,  an  imputation 
of  moral  turpitude.  Sir,  it  required  no  courage  to  do  that;  it 
required  no  magnanimity  to  do  it;  it  required  no  courtesy. 
It  only  required  hate,  bitter,  malignant,  sectional  feeling,  and 
a  sense  of  personal  impunity.  The  gentleman,  I  believe,  takes 
rank  among  Christian  statesmen.  He  might  have  learned  a 
better  lesson  from  the  pages  of  heathen  mythology." 


FAMOUS  FEUDS.  363 

Here  he  paused  a  moment  and  appeared  to  hesitate.  He 
leaned  toward  Senator  Thurman,  three  seats  away,  and  said, 
sotto  uoce,  but  loud  enough  to  be  heard  over  half  the  chamber : 
"What  was  the  name  of  the  man  who  was  chained  to  the  rock?" 

"Prometheus,"  was  the  reply,  in  a  stage  whisper. 

Of  course  the  name  was  familiar,  but  this  made  it  seem 
like  a  sudden  inspiration  of  genius. 

He  concluded :  ' '  When  Prometheus  was  bound  to  the  rock, 
it  was  not  an  eagle,  it  was  a  vulture,  that  buried  his  beak  in 
the  tortured  vitals  of  the  victim." 

During  his  eulogy  and  exculpation  of  Jefferson  Davis  the 
Northern  senators  sat  in  silence;  the  boldness  of  the  perform 
ance  was  paralyzing;  such  an  emergency  had  not  been  an 
ticipated.  No  one  was  ready.  The  passionate  and  excited 
spectators  in  the  galleries  wondered  why  no  champion  of  the 
North  took  up  the  glove. 

Toward  the  close  of  the  debate  a  note  fluttered  over  the 
balustrade  of  the  northeast  gallery,  and,  wavering  in  the  hot 
air,  was  caught  in  its  descent  by  a  page,  who  carried  it  to  Sen 
ator  Chandler,  of  Michigan,  to  whom  it  was  addressed.  It  was 
written  on  a  leaf  torn  from  a  memorandum-book,  without  sig 
nature,  and  begging  him  in  God 's  name  to  say  something  for 
the  Union  soldiers  and  for  the  North. 

Chandler  was  a  giant  in  stature,  a  politician  of  the  prac 
tical  type,  with  a  jaw  of  granite  and  the  fibre  of  a  walrus.  He 
was  destitute  of  sentiment,  and  spent  no  time  in  reverie.  He 
was  chairman  of  the  Republican  National  Committee,  and  the 
author  of  that  celebrated  dispatch,  "Hayes  has  185  votes,  and 
is  elected."  He  was  not  an  orator  like  Conkling  or  Lamar. 
His  weapon  was  the  butcher's  cleaver,  and  not  the  rapier. 


364  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

He  was  a  rough-and-tumble  fighter,  who  asked  no  odds  and 
feared  no  foe. 

He  read  the  anonymous  note  brought  from  the  gallery. 
The  black  fury  of  his  eyes  blazed  from  the  pallor  of  his  face. 
At  the  first  opportunity  he  obtained  the  floor,  and  delivered 
a  tremendous  Philippic  against  Jefferson  Davis.  It  was  evi 
dently  wholly  unpremeditated,  and  therefore  the  more  effective. 

He  said:  "Mr.  President,  twenty-two  years  ago  to-morrow, 
in  the  old  hall  of  the  Senate  now  occupied  by  the  Supreme 
Court  of  the  United  States,  I,  in  company  with  Mr.  Jefferson 
Davis,  stood  up  and  swore  before  Almighty  God  that  I  would 
support  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  Mr.  Jefferson 
Davis  came  from  the  Cabinet  of  Franklin  Pierce  into  the  Sen 
ate  of  the  United  States,  and  took  the  oath  with  me  to  be 
faithful  to  this  Government.  During  four  years  I  sat  in  this 
body  with  Mr.  Jefferson  Davis  and  saw  the  preparations  going 
on  from  day  to  day  for  the  overthrow  of  this  Government. 
With  treason  in  his  heart  and  perjury  upon  his  lips  he  took  the 
oath  to  sustain  the  Government  that  he  meant  to  overthrow. 

"Sir,  there  was  method  in  that  madness.  He,  in  cooperation 
with  other  men  from  his  section  and  in  the  Cabinet  of  Mr. 
Buchanan,  made  careful  preparation  for  the  event  that  was  to 
follow.  Your  armies  were  scattered  all  over  this  broad  land, 
where  they  could  not  be  used  in  an  emergency;  your  fleets 
were  scattered  wherever  the  winds  blew  and  water  was  found 
to  float  them,  where  they  could  not  be  used  to  put  down  rebel 
lion;  your  treasury  was  depleted  until  your  bonds  bearing  6 
per  cent,  principal  and  interest  payable  in  coin,  were  offered 
for  88  cents  on  the  dollar  for  current  expenses,  and  no  buyers. 
Preparations  were  carefully  made.  Your  arms  were  sold  un 
der  an  apparently  innocent  clause  in  an  army  bill  providing 


FAMOUS  FEUDS.  365 

that  the  Secretary  of  War  might,  at  his  discretion,  sell  such 
arms  as  he  deemed  it  for  the  interest  of  the  Government  to  sell. 
"Sir,  eighteen  years  ago  last  month  I  sat  in  these  halls  and 
listened  to  Jefferson  Davis  delivering  his  farewell  address,  in 
forming  us  what  our  constitutional  duties  to  this  Government 
were,  and  then  he  left  and  entered  into  the  rebellion  to  over 
throw  the  Government  that  he  had  sworn  to  support !  I  re 
mained  here,  sir,  during  the  whole  of  that  terrible  rebellion. 
I  saw  our  brave  soldiers  by  thousands  and  hundreds  of  thou 
sands,  aye,  I  might  say  millions,  pass  through  to  the  theatre  of 
war,  and  I  saw  their  shattered  ranks  return.  I  saw  steamboat 
after  steamboat  and  railroad  train  after  railroad  train  arrive  with 
the  maimed  and  the  wounded ;  I  was  with  my  friend  from  Rhode 
Island  [General  Burnside]  when  he  commanded  the  Army  of 
the  Potomac,  and  saw  piles  of  legs  and  arms  that  made  human 
ity  shudder;  I  saw  the  widow  and  orphan  in  their  homes,  and 
heard  the  weeping  and  wailing  of  those  who  had  lost  their  dear 
est  and  their  best.  Mr.  President,  I  little  thought  at  that  time 
I  should  live  to  hear  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States  eulogies 
upon  Jefferson  Davis  living — a  living  rebel  eulogized  on  the  floor 
of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States !  Sir,  I  am  amazed  to  hear 
it,  and  I  can  tell  the  gentlemen  on  the  other  side  that  they  lit 
tle  know  the  spirit  of  the  North  when  they  come  here  at  this 
day  and  with  bravado  on  their  lips  utter  eulogies  upon  a  man 
whom  every  man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  North  believes  to 
be  a  double-dyed  traitor  to  his  Government." 


THE  STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL 
COMMISSION. 


The  men  who  made  the  Constitution  and  built  up  our  polit 
ical  system,  rhetorically  known  as  the  fathers,  the  framers,  and 
the  founders  of  the  Republic,  had  little  confidence  in  what  Lin 
coln  called  the  plain,  common  people,  and  less  faith  in  their 
capacity  for  self-government. 

They  were  aristocrats.  They  believed  in  the  rule  of  the 
best,  and  not  the  rule  of  the  most. 

They  thought  public  affairs  should  be  controlled  by  intelli 
gence,  and  not  by  numbers. 

They  wanted  liberty  regulated  by  laws  enacted  by  the  wise, 
interpreted  by  the  learned,  and  administered  by  the  strong. 
How  far  their  distrust  of  universal  suffrage  as  the  foundation 
of  the  State  was  justified  is  shown  by  the  fact  that  while  reluc 
tantly  conceding  to  the  popular  vote  the  lower  house  of  Con 
gress,  which  has  been  seldom  tainted  with  impurity,  they  cre 
ated  a  Senate,  to  be  chosen  by  Legislatures — a  scheme  so  pro 
lific  in  venality,  intrigue,  bribery,  and  corruption  that  it  has 
become  the  scandal,  the  reproach,  and  the  menace  of  repub 
lican  institutions. 

For  the  choice  of  a  President  and  Vice- President  they  in 
vented  a  plan  by  which  the  people  were  to  have  nothing  to  do 
with  the  selection  of  their  Executive. 

It  was  so  ingeniously  clumsy  and  cumbersome,  so  defective 

in  safeguards  against  the  most  obvious  emergencies,  so  vague 

366 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       367 

in  its  definitions,  so  pregnant  with  dangers,  that,  even  as  im 
mediately  modified  by  the  twelfth  article  of  amendment  to  the 
Constitution,  the  marvel  is  that  a  catastrophe  has  been  so 
long  postponed. 

They  provided  for  the  appointment  in  each  State,  in  such 
manner  as  the  Legislatures  might  direct,  of  electors,  to  assemble 
on  a  stated  day  at  their  respective  capitals,  to  ballot  in  secret 
session,  without  consultation  with  their  associates  or  the  con 
stituency,  for  the  persons  best  qualified  in  their  judgment  to 
serve  as  Chief  Magistrate  of  the  Nation  and  as  President  of  the 
Senate  for  the  next  four  years. 

The  result  of  their  deliberations  being  signed  in  triplicate, 
one  certificate  is  sent  by  mail  and  one  by  messenger  to  the 
President  of  the  Senate,  the  third  being  retained  against  the 
contingency  of  loss  or  destruction. 

The  second  Tuesday  in  February  these  certificates  are  to 
be  opened  by  the  President  of  the  Senate  in  the  presence  of 
the  two  houses  of  Congress,  and  "the  votes  shall  then  be 
counted;"  but  by  whom  they  shall  be  counted  the  Constitu 
tion  saith  not.  Whether  the  Vice- President  and  President  of 
the  Senate  is  a  clerk,  a  custodian,  or  an  umpire  is  unknown. 
Whether  the  joint  convention  of  the  two  houses,  in  whose  pres 
ence  the  President  of  the  Senate  opens  the  certificates — and 
"the  votes  shall  then  be  counted" — is  an  impotent  pageant,  or 
the  political  tribunal  of  the  Nation,  has  never  been  determined. 
Whether  the  houses  separately  and  the  individual  senators 
and  representatives  are  curious  spectators,  or  jurors,  or  judges, 
is  an  enigma,  as  it  has  been  for  a  hundred  years. 

First  by  the  Congressional  Caucus,  and  then  by  the  National 
Nominating  Convention,  the  people  soon  assumed  the  power 
of  selecting  the  candidates  for  whom  the  Electoral  Colleges 


368  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

should  vote,  but  the  antiquated,  bungling,  obsolete  machinery 
remains.  Theoretically,  the  electors  can  vote  for  any  persons 
they  please  for  President  and  Vice- President.  In  1897  every 
Bryan  elector  had  the  Constitutional  right  to  vote  for  McKin- 
ley;  every  McKinley  elector  had  the  same  right  to  vote  for 
Bryan;  all  had  the  right  to  vote  for  Mr.  Clark,  of  Montana, 
or  Mr.  Addicks,  of  Delaware — in  either  of  which  events  the  cer 
tificates  would  be  opened  by  the  President  of  the  Senate,  and 
"the  votes  shall  then  be  counted."  There  is  no  restraint  but 
loyalty  and  the  decrees  of  public  opinion. 

Chancellor  Kent,  in  his  commentaries,  says  the  President  of 
the  Senate  counts  the  votes  and  determines  the  result.  It  is 
certain  that  the  first  electoral  votes  were  opened  and  counted, 
and  George  Washington  was  declared  elected  by  John  Lang- 
don,  a  senator  from  the  State  of  New  Hampshire,  who  was 
chosen  by  the  Senate  as  its  President,  for  that  sole  purpose, 
before  the  Government  was  organized. 

It  is  equally  certain  that  had  the  President  of  the  Senate, 
in  February,  1877,  opened  the  certificates,  counted  the  votes, 
and  declared  Hayes  and  Wheeler  elected  President  and  Vice- 
President,  by  including  the  returns  from  Florida,  Louisiana, 
South  Carolina,  and  Oregon  among  the  others  which  were 
not  disputed,  the  House  of  Representatives,  being  Democratic, 
would  have  at  once  proceeded  to  elect  Tilden  and  Hendricks, 
voting  by  States.  The  result  would  have  been  two  Presidents, 
each  supported  by  his  own  party,  each  claiming  title  under 
the  Constitution,  a  double  inauguration,  the  Senate  and  House 
arrayed  against  each  other,  with  the  probability  of  armed  col 
lision,  anarchy,  and  civil  war.  The  election  of  1876  was  the 
subsiding  ground-swell  of  the  war. 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       369 

After  the  surrender,  the  South  submitted  for  a  while  to 
emancipation,  negro  suffrage,  civil  rights  enactments,  and  the 
other  crude  enormities  of  Reconstruction;  but,  organizing  at 
length  in  White  Leagues  and  Ku-Klux  Klans,  overturned  the 
unstable  governments  which  the  ignorance  of  the  former  slaves 
and  the  cupidity  of  political  adventurers  had  reared  upon  the 
ruins  of  war.  Wealth,  intelligence,  and  education  were  dis 
franchised.  The  social  fabric,  like  a  pyramid  resting  on  its 
apex  instead  of  its  base,  stood  so  long  as  it  was  supported  by 
bayonets,  and,  when  these  were  withdrawn,  fell  with  a  crash 
in  blood  and  crime  that  startled  the  world  with  the  horrors  of 
its  destruction.  The  North,  shocked  and  appalled  by  wrongs 
and  outrages  which  laws  'were  unable  either  to  prevent  or 
to  punish,  and  exasperated  by  the  bewildering  failure  of  the 
policy  of  Reconstruction  either  to  protect  the  negro  in  his 
rights  or  to  perpetuate  his  political  power,  saw  with  resent 
ment  State  after  State  falling  into  Democratic  control  under 
the  supremacy  of  the  civil  and  military  leaders  of  the  Confed 
eracy.  Of  the  eleven  seceding  States,  all  save  three — Florida, 
South  Carolina,  and  Louisiana — were  lost  to  the  Republicans. 
These  the  Democrats  hoped  to  carry  for  Tilden;  or,  failing  in 
this,  so  to  corrupt  the  returns  that  their  electoral  votes  could 
not  be  received  and  counted. 

The  passions  of  the  combatants  were  thus  aroused  to  the 
pitch  of  frenzy.  For  the  first  time  in  sixteen  years  the  Demo 
crats  felt  the  possibility  of  resuming  national  power.  The 
Republicans  inflamed  the  Northern  States  by  presenting  the 
dangers  of  the  "  Solid  South,"  insisting  that  the  purpose  was  to 
obtain  payment  for  losses  in  the  war,  for  the  assumption  of 
the  Confederate  debt,  with  compensation  for  the  emancipated 
slaves. 


370  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

These  charges  made  such  an  impression  and  were  urged 
with  such  persistent  vehemence  that  Mr.  Hewitt,  of  New 
York,  in  an  open  letter  called  them  to  the  attention  of  Mr. 
Tilden,  who  said,  in  his  published  reply,  that  should  he  be 
elected  President,  he  should  deem  it  his  duty  to  veto  every  bill 
for  the  assumption  or  payment  of  any  such  debts,  losses,  dam 
ages,  or  claims,  which  gave  Republican  orators  precisely  the 
opportunity  they  desired,  and  was  like  an  effort  to  put  out  a 
fire  by  pouring  on  kerosene. 

Neither  of  the  Presidential  candidates  inspired  any  personal 
enthusiasm  among  his  followers. 

Hayes  was  hopelessly  prosaic  and  commonplace.  He  had 
been  a  reputable  soldier,  and  was  by  profession  a  lawyer.  He 
was  the  "dark  horse"  of  the  Cincinnati  convention,  rendered 
available  because  in  a  desperate  emergency  he  had  been  chos 
en  Governor  of  Ohio.  He  had  no  vices,  and  the  customary 
sort  of  rather  tiresome  and  uninteresting  virtues.  His  enemies 
accused  him  of  sanctimony  and  hypocrisy,  and  of  sometimes 
forgetting  his  promises ;  but  all  good  men  have  been  slandered 
by  their  contemporaries. 

Tilden  was  a  cadaverous,  tallow-faced  attorney,  in  feeble- 
health,  who,  having  raked  together  an  immense  fortune,  natu 
rally  became  a  reformer  in  politics,  and  was  elected  Governor 
of  New  York.  His  methods  were  those  of  the  mole,  except 
that  he  left  no  external  indications  of  the  silent  and  tortuous 
windings  of  his  subterranean  pathway.  He  took  personal 
management  of  his  campaign  with  a  few  confidential  clerks, 
and  was  accused  of  attempting  to  purchase  the  vote  necessary 
to  secure  a  majority  of  one  in  the  Electoral  College.  The 
election  took  place  November  7,  and  by  midnight  the  general 
impression  was  that  Tilden  had  been  successful.  He  had 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       371 

carried  Connecticut,  New  York,  Indiana,  and  all  the  Southern 
States  except  Florida,  South  Carolina,  and  Louisiana,  and  in 
those  the  result  was  uncertain,  though  early  reports  favored 
the  Democrats.  The  next  day  the  Republicans,  many  of  them, 
practically  gave  up  the  fight  and  conceded  the  election  of  Til- 
den.  The  Republicans  had  the  State  officers  and  the  return 
ing  boards  in  the  disputed  States,  but  they  were  mysteriously 
silent.  The  fortunes  of  Hayes  seemed  gloomy,  dark,  and  des 
perate  indeed. 

Toward  nightfall  "Old  Zack"  Chandler,  the  chairman  of 
the  National  Republican  Committee,  sent  out  through  the 
Associated  Press,  with  no  preface,  nor  arithmetic,  nor  index, 
his  celebrated  dispatch:  "Hayes  and  Wheeler  have  185  votes, 
and  are  elected." 

The  Democrats  went  into  hysterics,  and  the  Republicans 
recovered  their  equanimity. 

What  actually  occurred  in  Florida,  Louisiana,  and  South 
Carolina  the  day  of  the  election,  and  afterward,  and  who  really 
received  a  majority  of  the  votes  cast,  will  never  be  known ;  but 
the  Hayes  electors  were  certified  by  the  returning  boards  in 
due  time,  and  the  certificates  forwarded  to  the  President  of 
the  Senate.  Duplicate  certificates  from  each  State  were  also 
sent  in,  showing  the  choice  of  Democratic  electors  and  their 
votes  for  Tilden  and  Hendricks. 

The  interval  till  the  meeting  of  Congress  in  December  was 
full  of  apprehension.  The  Democrats  were  violent  in  their  de 
nunciations,  and  threatened  to  have  an  army  of  occupation 
in  Washington  to  superintend  the  counting  of  the  electoral 
votes  in  February. 

Grant  was  President.  When  asked  if  he  thought  there 
would  be  any  trouble,  he  replied:  "No,  1  think  not;  but  it 


372  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

has  been  one  rule  of  my  life  to  be  always  ready."  Troops 
began  to  gather  in  the  forts  along  the  Potomac.  Batteries  of 
artillery  came  in  from  the  West  by  rail  and  rumbled  through 
the  streets  at  night  on  their  way  to  the  Arsenal  and  the  Navy 
Yard.  Groups  of  soldiers  in  bright  new  uniforms,  but  without 
arms,  strolled  to  and  fro  on  the  Avenue — whether  on  duty  or 
on  furlough  no  one  appeared  to  know.  Possibly  Grant  was 
getting  ready  to  have  his  successor,  Hayes  or  Tilden,  peaceably 
inaugurated  and  installed. 

Recognizing  the  extreme  gravity  of  the  crisis,  the  brevity 
of  the  time,  the  infirmity  of  the  Constitution,  and  the  tremen 
dous  dangers  that  threatened  the  peace,  and  possibly  the  ex 
istence,  of  the  Nation,  soon  after  Congress  assembled,  a  joint 
committee,  consisting  of  seven  tmembers  from  each  house, 
was  appointed  to  prepare  a  bill  to  provide  for  and  regulate 
the  counting  of  the  votes  for  President  and  Vice-President, 
and  the  decision  of  questions  arising  thereunder,  for  the  term 
beginning  March  4,  1877. 

The  Senate  was  Republican,  and  appointed  Edmunds,  Fre- 
linghuysen,  Morton,  Conkling,  Thurman,  Bayard,  and  Ransom. 

The  House  was  Democratic,  and  appointed  Payne,  of  Ohio ; 
Hunton,  of  Virginia;  Hewitt,  of  New  York;  Springer,  of  Illi 
nois  ;  McCrary,  of  Iowa ;  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts ;  and  Willard, 
of  Michigan:  in  the  aggregate,  seven  Republicans  and  seven 
Democrats. 

They  brought  to  their  delicate  and  difficult  task  exalted 
patriotism,  matured  experience,  and  the  highest  intellectual 
powers.  Edmunds,  in  his  opening  speech,  said  the  dispute 
with  which  they  were  to  deal  was  probably  as  great  as  ever 
existed  in  the  world  under  the  law.  This  statement  was 
not  sensational.  Wars  have  been  waged,  kings  beheaded,  and 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       373 

dynasties  overthrown  in  controversies  far  less  momentous 
and  complicated  than  that  which  now  confronted  the  Ameri 
can  people.  The  legal  questions  involved  were  novel.  There 
were  no  precedents.  A  contingency  had  risen  for  the  first 
time  in  the  history  of  the  Nation,  and  is  liable  to  rise  again, 
for  which  the  Constitution  and  the  laws  were,  and  still  are, 
inadequate. 

But,  untried  and  intricate  as  was  the  legal  problem,  this 
was  trifling  compared  with  the  political  predicament. 

The  committee  was  not  only  to  devise  an  unconstitutional 
measure  that  should  be  strictly  within  constitutional  limita 
tions  (which  would  not  be  hard,  for  that  instrument  is  elas 
tic  and  hospitable),  but  to  invent  a  tribunal  composed  of 
partisans  that  should  be  non-partisan  in  operation ;  propitiate 
the  implacables ;  preserve  the  prerogatives  of  the  Senate,  and 
maintain  the  conflicting  pretensions  of  the  House;  secure  the 
cooperation  of  those  who  contended  that  there  was  power  to 
"go  behind  the  returns,"  and  those  who  asserted  that  the  only 
question  to  be  decided  was  which  certificate  was  actually  given 
by  the  authorities  of  the  State;  and,  most  important  of  all, 
obtain  the  cordial  support  of  both  parties  by  holding  out  to 
each  the  hope  of  cheating  the  other. 

The  committee  deliberated  a  month,  and  on  January  i8th 
Senator  Edmunds  reported  what  is  popularly  known  as  the 
Electoral  Commission  Bill,  Senator  Morton  being  the  only  dis 
senter.  As  a  specimen  of  political  funambulism,  it  will  take 
rank  among  the  highest  achievements  of  the  human  mind. 

It  provided,  in  substance,  for  the  meeting  of  the  two  houses 
and  the  course  of  procedure;  for  the  disposition  of  questions 
arising  in  respect  to  States  from  which  but  one  set  of  certifi 
cates  had  been  received;  for  the  reference  of  questions  arising 


374  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

in  respect  to  States  from  which  more  than  one  certificate  had 
been  received,  to  a  Commission  consisting  of  five  senators, 
five  representatives,  and  five  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court, 
the  decision  of  majority  to  be  final,  unless  rejected  by  con 
current  votes  of  both  Houses,  in  which  event  their  order  should 
prevail ;  and  for  the  reservation  of  all  legal  and  constitutional 
rights,  if  any,  to  test  the  questions  of  title  in  the  courts. 

Four  of  the  Supreme  Court  justices  were  designated  in  the 
bill — those  assigned  to  the  First,  Third,  Eighth,  and  Ninth 
Circuits ;  they  to  select  the  fifth  in  such  manner  as  they  might 
decide. 

Edmunds,  in  commenting  on  this  clause,  declared  with 
some  grandiloquence  that  the  choice  of  the  four  justices  was 
geographical — one  from  New  England,  one  from  New  York, 
one  from  the  Northwest,  and  one  from  the  Pacific. 

Morton  sneeringly  replied  that  they  were  selected  on  ac 
count  of  their  known  previous  political  predilections,  and  that 
the  reason  why  the  Democrats  favored  the  bill  was  because 
they  expected  it  would  elect  Tilden. 

Curiously  enough,  it  did  turn  out  that  two  of  the  justices, 
Clifford  and  Field,  were  Democrats,  and  two,  Miller  and  Strong, 
Republicans;  but  probably  Edmunds  was  not  aware  of  this. 
At  least,  he  did  not  mention  it  in  his  speech.  So  far,  then,  the 
Commission  was  equally  divided  in  politics — seven  Republi 
cans,  seven  Democrats,  with  the  fifteenth  member  in  abeyance ; 
the  unknown  arbiter,  the  domesman  of  the  Electoral  College. 

The  justices,  being  two  and  two,  could  not  well  ballot,  and 
were  too  dignified  to  pull  straws.  It  became  to  be  under 
stood  that  seniority  of  service  would  control,  and  their  choice 
would  fall  on  Justice  David  Davis,  who  was  known  to  favor 
Tilden,  so  this  non-partisan  Commission  would  consist  of  eight 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       375 

Democrats  and  seven  Republicans.  They  joy  of  the  Democ 
racy  was  unconfined.  They  considered  the  bill  the  supreme 
effort  of  human  wisdom,  for  whose  praise  every  place  was  a 
temple  and  all  seasons  summer. 

The  Republicans  said  little.  They  were  taciturn  and  re 
served.  What  they  thought  was  never  disclosed.  But  what 
happened  was  this :  The  term  of  General  John  A.  Logan  as 
senator  from  Illinois  was  about  to  expire.  He  was  an  active 
candidate  for  re-election.  The  Legislature  was  so  nearly  a  tie 
between  the  Republicans  and  Democrats  that  five  "independ 
ents"  held  the  balance  of  power.  They  supported  Judge  Davis, 
and,  after  several  days  of  futile  and  barren  balloting,  the  Dem 
ocrats  united  with  them  and  elected  him  as  Logan's  successor. 
Whereupon  the  Judge  resigned  from  the  Supreme  bench  to 
take  his  seat  in  the  Senate  March  4,  1877. 

The  next  ranking  justice  was  Joseph  P.  Bradley,  a  Repub 
lican,  and  favorable  to  the  election  of  Hayes.  Thus,  by  an 
incredible  caprice  of  Fortune,  a  gamester's  chance,  Fate,  shuf 
fling  the  cards,  dealt  the  last  trump  to  the  Republicans,  and 
the  Commission  stood  eight  to  seven  for  Hayes. 

Like  the  gentleman  in  Bret  Harte's  poem  who  was  struck 
in  the  abdomen  by  a  red-sandstone  specimen  and  doubled  up 
on  the  floor,  the  subsequent  proceedings  interested  the  Demo 
crats  no  more.  They  denounced  the  bill  as  the  climax  of  vil 
lainy,  and  its  authors  as  the  supreme  malefactors  of  history. 
Perhaps  their  emotions  were  best  described  by  Judge  Jeremiah 
Black,  one  of  the  counsel  in  the  South  Carolina  case,  who  said 
in  a  speech  to  the  Commission,  apropos  of  nothing:  "This 
Nation  has  got  her  great  big  foot  in  a  trap.  It  is  vain  to  strug 
gle  for  her  extrication.  *  *  *  * 


376  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

"Usually  it  is  said,  'In  vain  the  net  is  spread  in  the  sight  of 
any  bird,'  but  this  fowler  set  the  net  in  the  sight  of  the  birds 
that  went  into  it.  It  is  largely  our  own  fault  that  we  were 
caught.  *  *  *  *  At  present  you  have  us  down  and 
under  your  feet.  Never  had  you  a  better  right  to  rejoice. 
Well  may  you  say;  'We  have  made  a  covenant  with  death,, 
and  with  hell  are  we  at  agreement.'  ' 

The  bill  passed  the  Senate  47  to  17  and  the  House  191  to  86,. 
exactly  as  it  came  from  the  committee.  It  was  approved  by 
President  Grant,  January  29th,  with  a  special  message,  in  which 
he  characterized  the  measure  as  one  that  afforded  "wise  and 
constitutional  means  of  escape  from  imminent  peril  to  the 
institutions  of  the  country." 

January  3oth  the  Senate  chose  Edmunds,  Morton,  Freling- 
huysen,  Thurman,  and  Bayard,  and  the  House,  Payne,  Hunton, 
Abbott,  Hoar,  and  Garfield,  as  the  Congressional  members  of 
the  Commission.  The  same  day  the  four  associate  justices  of 
the  Supreme  Court  selected  Justice  Bradley  as  the  fifth  mem 
ber,  and  the  tribunal  was  complete. 

They  assembled  January  3ist,  at  n  A.  M.,  in  the  Supreme 
Court  room  at  the  Capitol,  organized,  appointed  their  staff, 
adopted  rules,  and,  shortly  before  noon,  February  ist,  notified 
the  Senate  and  House  that  they  were  ready  to  proceed  to  the 
performance  of  their  duties. 

The  President  pro  tempore  appointed  Mr.  Allison,  of  Iowa,, 
and  Mr.  Ingalls,  of  Kansas,  tellers  on  the  part  of  the  Senate; 
and  Speaker  Randall  appointed  Mr.  Cook,  of  Georgia,  and  Mr. 
Stone,  of  Missouri,  tellers  on  the  part  of  the  House. 

On  motion  of  Mr.  Edmunds,  at  one  o'clock  the  Senate 
huddled  in  careless,  disorderly  array  out  of  its  chamber,  and 
marched  by  twos  in  straggling  procession  through  the  Rotunda, 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       377 

between  ranks  of  curious  and  silent  spectators,  halting  for  an 
instant  at  the  door  of  the  Hall  of  Representatives. 

At  the  head  of  the  column  was  the  President  pro  tern., 
escorted  by  the  Sergeant-at-Arms,  and  followed  by  the  vener 
able  assistant  doorkeeper,  Isaac  Bassett,  carrying  the  electoral 
certificates  in  two  square  black-walnut  boxes  with  brass  han 
dles  on  the  covers,  like  a  commercial  traveler  with  his  sample- 
cases  going  into  the  office  of  the  leading  hotel.  One  box  con 
tained  the  certificates  sent  by  messenger,  the  other,  those  sent 
by  mail;  about  half  a  bushel  of  each. 

The  House  arose  to  receive  the  Senate,  which  took  seats  in 
the  body  of  the  hall  upon  the  right  of  the  presiding  officer. 
The  Speaker  vacated  the  chair,  which  was  taken  by  President 
Ferry.  Randall,  imperturbable  and  impassive,  sat  at  his  left. 
The  Secretary  of  the  Senate,  the  Clerk  of  the  House,  and  the 
tellers  sat  at  the  Clerk's  desk,  the  stenographers  and  other 
officials  having  tables  in  front  and  on  either  side  of  the  plat 
form.  The  galleries  were  packed.  The  silence  was  profound 
— an  expectant  hush,  as  when  the  curtain  rises  for  the  pro 
logue  at  the  first  presentation  of  a  great  drama. 

The  President  of  the  Senate  called  the  joint  meeting  to 
order,  announced  its  object,  and,  with  a  new,  sharp,  long  knife, 
the  Sergeant-at-Arms  had  provided,  proceeded  to  slit  the  en 
velope  containing  the  certificate  of  the  State  of  Alabama  re 
ceived  by  messenger,  which  he  handed  to  Senator  Allison, 
who  read  it  in  full,  giving  ten  votes  to  Tilden  and  Hendricks. 
Then  he  opened  the  envelope  received  by  mail  from  the  same 
State  and  handed  it  down  to  be  read,  when  Senator  Conkling 
somewhat  impatiently  suggested  that  it  could  hardly  be  nec 
essary  to  read  the  duplicate  in  full,  and  that  hereafter  as  one 
was  read  the  other  should  be  compared 


378  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

The  certificates  were  opened  in  alphabetical  order,  Ala 
bama  being  followed  by  Arkansas,  California,  Colorado,  and 
Delaware,  to  none  of  which  were  objections  made,  and  the 
reading  droned  monotonously  along  till  half-past  two,  when 
Florida  was  reached,  the  first  of  the  disputed  States  from 
which  triplicate  returns  had  been  received:  one,  from  the 
Republican  Governor  and  Secretary  of  State,  certifying  the 
choice  of  the  Hayes  electors;  the  second,  from  the  Attorney- 
General,  certifying  that  the  returns  showed  the  election  of  the 
Tilden  electors ;  the  third,  by  the  Democratic  Governor  and 
Secretary  of  State  chosen  at  the  general  election,  certifying  to 
proceedings  under  an  act  of  the  Legislature  and  the  judgment 
of  a  State  court  in  favor  of  the  Tilden  electors.  An  objection 
was  also  filed  that  one  of  the  Hayes  electors  at  the  time  of  his 
appointment  held  an  office  of  trust  and  profit  under  the  United 
States,  and  was  therefore  ineligible. 

All  the  papers,  exhibits,  and  certificates,  with  the  objections 
signed  by  senators  and  representatives,  were  immediately 
transmitted  to  the  Commission,  which  was  in  session,  and  the 
Senate  withdrew  to  its  chamber  to  wait  for  the  decision,  which 
was  not  reached  till  late  in  the  evening  of  February  gth. 

The  sessions  of  the  Commission  were  held  in  the  vaulted 
hall  which  the  Senate  left  for  its  new  chamber  January  4,  1859; 
the  historic  room  where  Webster  hurled  the  thunderbolts  of 
his  logic  and  eloquence  at  Hayne,  and  which  resounded  to  the 
oratorical  duels  between  Calhoun  and  Clay. 

In  one  of  the  upper  corridors  hangs  a  painting  by  Mrs. 
Fassett,  perhaps  of  greater  historic  interest  than  artistic  value, 
representing  Mr.  Evarts  addressing  the  tribunal  before  an  audi 
ence  that  fills  the  room.  The  portraits  include  many  of  the 
most  eminent  personages,  at  the  bar  and  in  public  life,  of  an 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE;  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       379 

epoch  made  illustrious  by  their  achievements  in  oratory  and 
statesmanship. 

The  wisdom  of  having  a  strictly  political  capital,  abso 
lutely  under  the  control  of  the  Government,  away  from  busi 
ness,  commercial,  and  industrial  centers,  was  never  more 
clearly  demonstrated  than  during  the  pendency  of  these  trans 
actions.  The  revolutions,  ententes,  and  coups  d'etat  of  France 
are  due,  more  than  to  any  other  cause,  to  the  location  of  the 
executive  and  legislative  departments  in  Paris,  surrounded  by 
idle  and  frenzied  mobs  that  invade  and  threaten  and  disturb, 
destroying  independence  and  rendering  tranquil  deliberation 
and  dispassionate  judgment  impossible. 

Had  Congress  and  the  Commission  sat  in  Baltimore  or 
New  York,  that  month  of  national  jeopardy,  among  raging 
multitude?  of  infuriated  partisans  with  their  parades  and  mass- 
meetings,  and  the  demonstrations  of  demagogues,  no  prophet 
could  have  foretold  what  the  end  would  be. 

Even  in  Washington,  so  somnolent  and  obsequious,  where 
public  opinion  is  subdued  to  what  it  works  in,  like  the  dyer's 
hand,  it  looked  squally  enough  at  times,  especially  toward 
the  close.  Probably  Watterson's  call  for  a  hundred  thousand 
"one-armed  Kentuckians,"  as  the  wags  travestied  it,  to  super 
intend  the  electoral  count,  was  the  rhapsody  of  an  automatic 
rhetorician,  but  the  town  swarmed  with  disreputable  and  un 
bidden  guests,  who  haunted  the  Capitol,  lounged  in  the  lob 
bies,  sauntered  through  the  grounds,  and  crowded  the  galleries 
of  the  House  at  every  joint  session.  The  police  were  rein 
forced.  Detectives  in  plain  clothes  and  heavily  armed  were 
stationed  among  the  spectators.  A  vague  terror  brooded  in 
the  air — the  apprehension  of  an  impending  tragedy. 


380  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

As  an  illustration,  rather  amusing  now,  of  the  trepidations 
of  the  time,  word  came  to  Ferry  one  morning,  either  by  anony 
mous  letter  or  through  the  report  of  a  detective,  that  as  the 
Senate  passed  through  the  Rotunda  at  noon  on  its  way  to  the 
House,  a  gang  of  ruffians  were  to  assault  the  head  of  the  con 
secrated  column  and  in  the  confusion  take  the  boxes  contain 
ing  the  certificates  from  Captain  Bassett,  carry  them  off,  and 
destroy  the  returns  not  counted.  It  seemed  feasible  enough, 
and,  if  successful,  would  have  prematurely  closed  the  functions 
of  the  Commission  and  given  the  House  the  opportunity,  cov 
eted  by  the  implacables,  of  electing  Tilden  President,  voting 
by  States  as  the  Constitution  provides  when  there  is  no  choice 
by  the  electors. 

The  hour  of  meeting  was  near  at  hand.  The  time  for  delib 
eration  was  short.  Ferry,  who  was  naturally  somewhat  of  an 
alarmist,  held  a  hurried  consultation  with  his  staff,  and  it  was 
finally  decided  to  empty  the  boxes  secretly  and  take  the  returns 
over  as  personal  assets.  To  Bassett  this  seemed  little  short 
of  sacrilege,  like  rifling  the  Ark  of  the  covenant.  It  was  con 
trary  to  the  precedents  of  half  a  century.  But  Ferry  decided 
that  it  was  an  emergency,  and,  as  what  is  past  help  should  be 
past  grief,  the  boxes  were  unlocked  and  the  returns  stowed 
away  in  the  breast  pockets  and  side  pockets  and  coat-tail  pock 
ets  of  the  tellers  and  other  officials,  and  Bassett  marched  with 
his  empty  packing-cases  at  the  head  of  the  procession. 

Of  course  nothing  happened.  There  was  no  assault.  I  im 
agine  none  was  contemplated.  Some  joker,  no  doubt,  played 
on  Ferry's  credulity.  The  boxes  were  placed  under  the  Clerk's 
desk  in  the  House,  the  returns  collected  from  their  extempo 
raneous  receptacles  and  returned  to  proper  custody,  and  the 
incident  was  closed. 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       381 

The  array  of  counsel  has  not  in  any  forum  been  surpassed 
in  learning  and  eloquence.  Prominent  among  them  were  Jere 
miah  S.  Black,  Secretary  of  State  and  Attorney-General  under 
Buchanan;  Montgomery  Blair,  Lincoln's  Postmaster-General; 
Matthew  Carpenter,  previously  and  afterwards  senator  from 
Wisconsin;  William  M.  Evarts,  Attorney-General  in  the  Cab 
inet  of  Andrew  Johnson,  and  afterward  Secretary  of  State 
under  Hayes ;  George  Hoadley,  at  one  time  Governor  of  Ohio ; 
Stanley  Matthews,  senator  from  Ohio  and  justice  of  the  Su 
preme  Court ;  Charles  O  'Conor,  perhaps  the  leader  of  the  New 
York  bar;  Samuel  Shellabarger,  member  of  Congress  from 
Ohio  during  the  war;  Lyman  Trumbull,  eighteen  years  sen 
ator  from  Illinois ;  and  William  C.  Whitney,  afterwards  Cleve 
land's  Secretary  of  the  Navy.  Others  scarcely  less  eminent 
pleaded  briefs,  and  several  senators  and  members  of  Con 
gress  participated  in  the  arguments. 

Stripped  of  all  superfluities,  subtleties,  and  technicalities, 
the  Republican  contention  was  that  the  returns  of  the  electoral 
votes,  duly  certified  by  the  State  authorities,  were  final  and 
conclusive,  and  that  neither  Congress  nor  the  Commission 
could  receive  evidence  from  any  outside  source,  either  that 
the  electors  were  not  chosen,  or  that  others  were,  or  that  there 
had  been  fraud,  forgery,  violence,  or  other  irregularities,  either 
in  the  election,  the  canvassing  board,  or  any  proceedings  sub 
sequent  thereto. 

The  Democrats  insisted  upon  the  right  to  go  behind  the 
returns  and  prove  that  the  Tilden,  and  not  the  Hayes,  electors 
were  chosen  by  the  people,  and  that  the  certificates  were  forged 
and  fraudulent. 

Whether  Tilden  or  Hayes  had  the  majority  in  Florida, 
Louisiana,  or  South  Carolina  is  not  capable  of  proof.  It  is 


382  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

doubtful  if  there  has  been  an  absolutely  square  and  honest 
Presidential  election  since  the  time  of  George  Washington. 
It  is  not  likely  there  ever  will  be.  There  will  always  be  buy 
ing  and  selling  and  juggling  and  cheating,  not  sufficient  in 
all  cases,  it  may  be,  to  change  the  result.  Clay's  supporters 
always  believed  he  was  defeated  by  frauds  in  Louisiana  in 
1844.  So,  although  the  Electoral  Commission  was  packed  for 
Haves,  by  destiny,  and  the  result  was  as  well  known  when 
they  took  the  oath  of  office  as  when  they  adjourned  sine  die. 
yet  the  doctrine  was  sound. 

After  the  first  test  vote,  I  remember  Morton  came  hobbling 
into  the  chamber  on  his  canes  and  took  his  seat,  which  was 
just  behind  mine.  I  asked  him  how  the  Commission  stood. 
"Oh!"  he  replied,  with  a  grimace  of  savage  satisfaction, 
"eight  to  seven,  of  course.  That  settles  it." 

Though  the  Commission  voted  "eight  to  seven"  in  favor 
of  the  Hayes  electors  from  Florida  at  its  evening  session, 
Friday,  February  9,  it  was  not  till  the  joint  meeting  of  Mon 
day,  the  1 2th,  that  the  vote  of  the  State  was  counted,  after 
which  the  returns  from  Georgia,  Illinois,  Indiana,  Iowa,  Kan 
sas,  and  Kentucky  were  opened  without  objection.  The  cer 
tificate  from  Louisiana  was  challenged,  and  the  duplicates, 
with  the  objections  from  both  sides,  were  read  and  presented 
at  five  o'clock  p.  M.  to  the  Commission  by  Mr.  Gorham,  the 
Secretary  of  the  Senate.  They  were  counted  eight  days  later, 
February  2oth,  with  Maine,  Maryland,  and  Massachusetts.  Ob 
jection  was  filed  to  one  of  the  electors  of  Michigan  the  same 
day,  but  not  sustained  by  either  house,  and  that  State  was 
counted  with  Minnesota,  Mississippi,  Missouri,  and  Nebraska. 
An  objection  to  the  eligibility  of  one  of  the  electors  from 
Nevada  was  overruled  bv  both  houses,  and  the  next  dav. 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       383 

February  2ist,  the  full  vote  of  Nevada  was  polled,  followed  by 
New  Hampshire,  New  Jersey,  New  York,  North  Carolina,  and 
Ohio.  When  the  certificate  from  Oregon  was  opened,  objec 
tions  were  presented  to  the  eligibility  of  one  of  the  electors, 
and  the  papers  were  sent  to  the  Commission,  which  heard  argu 
ments  till  February  24th,  when,  the  decision  being  in  favor  of  the 
Hayes  electors,  the  full  vote  of  the  State  was  counted  for  Hayes. 
Thereupon  objections  were  immediately  made  to  a  Pennsyl 
vania  elector,  and  both  houses  adjourned  over  till  Monday, 
February  26th.  At  this  time  Senator  Thurman  resigned  from 
the  Commission  on  account  of  ill  health,  and  Senator  Kernan, 
of  New  York,  was  chosen  to  fill  the  vacancy. 

Monday  afternoon  Pennsylvania  was  counted,  and  an  ob 
jection  then  filed  to  a  Rhode  Island  elector,  which  was  so 
transparently  frivolous  that  it  was  rejected  in  both  houses — 
whereupon  the  Democrats  filibustered  from  3:30  till  6,  when 
Rhode  Island  was  put  in  the  Hayes  list.  This  brought  the 
poll  to  South  Carolina,  which  was  a  storm-centre,  and  the 
duplicate  returns  and  other  papers  at  6:30  P.  M.  went  to  the 
Commission,  which  then  adjourned  till  the  next  day  at  ten. 
There  were  now  but  five  days  till  the  end  of  Grant's  term. 

South  Carolina  was  counted  the  evening  of  February  28th, 
followed  by  Tennessee  and  Texas,  and,  on  objection  to  the 
eligibility  of  an  elector  from  Vermont,  both  houses  took  a 
recess  till  10  A.  M.,  Thursday,  March  ist. 

As  the  end  drew  nearer  the  mutineers  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  became  rabid  with  rage.  They  defied  the 
efforts  of  the  presiding  officer  to  preserve  order.  They  inter 
posed  dilatory  motions,  and  became  violent  in  their  efforts  to 
delay  the  final  count  bevond  the  fourth  of  March. 


384  JOHX  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Thursday,  March  ist,  was  spent  from  ten  in  the  morning 
till  nearly  midnight  by  the  House  in  a  parliamentary  wrangle 
over  an  objection  to  the  eligibility  of  the  elector  from  Ver 
mont,  which  the  Senate  had  overruled  the  night  before. 

The  joint  meeting  resumed  its  sessions  at  eleven  o'clock 
at  night,  and  the  vote  of  Vermont  was  counted,  followed  by 
Virginia  and  West  Virginia,  which  were  not  disputed.  This 
left  only  Wisconsin,  and  it  was  supposed  the  dreary,  wretched 
conflict  was  ended;  but  as  soon  as  the  certificate  was  opened, 
an  objection  was  presented.  The  Senate  returned  to  its  cham 
ber,  and  waited  three  hours  for  the  House  to  decide  that  it 
should  not. 

At  four  o'clock,  Friday  morning,  March  2nd,  the  Senate 
shambled  over  to  the  House.  The  vote  of  Wisconsin  was  an 
nounced;  the  count  of  the  thirty-eight  States  was  concluded. 
Teller  Allison  read  the  tally-sheet,  and  handed  it  up  to  Sen- 
tor  Ferry,  who  said:  "In  announcing  the  final  result  of  the 
electoral  vote,  the  Chair  trusts  that  all  present,  whether  on  the 
floor  or  in  the  galleries,  will  refrain  from  all  demonstrations 
whatever;  that  nothing  shall  transpire  on  this  occasion  to 
mar  the  dignity  and  moderation  which  have  characterized 
these  proceedings,  in  the  main  so  reputable  to  the  American 
people  and  worthy  of  the  respect  of  the  world."  He  then 
read  UK-  state  of  the  vote,  and  declared  Hayes  and  Wheeler 
elected  President  and  Vice- President  for  four  years  from  March 

4,   1877- 

The  finale  of  the  drama  was  neither  dignified,  impressive, 
nor  inspiring.  The  light  from  the  paneled  ceiling  fell  though 
an  atmosphere  dim  and  murky  with  dust  and  smoke.  The 
actors  and  the  spectators  were  drowsy,  frowsy,  and  dishev- 


STORMY  DAYS  OF  THE  ELECTORAL  COMMISSION.       385 

eled.  The  hall  was  in  squalid  confusion  and  disorder,  foul 
with  the  debris  of  a  protracted  session. 

That  no  incongruity  might  be  wanting,  some  enthusiast 
had  sent  Ferry,  for  signing  the  final  tranuscript,  the  tail-feather 
of  an  eagle  from  Lake  Superior.  This  he  had  made  into  a 
quill  pen,  whose  plume  reached  his  shoulder  as  he  was  affix 
ing  his  signature  to  the  scroll. 

At  ten  minutes  past  four  the  gavel  fell,  the  lights  were 
turned  out,  and  the  curtain  went  down.  There^was  but  one 
day  till  the  end  of  Grant's  term! 

The  gray  light  of  a  bleak  and  bitter  dawn  was  just  visible 
on  the  great  dome  as  I  rode  homeward  through  the  silent  and 
deserted  streets  of  the  sleeping  city. 


THE  MOUNTAINS. 


What  an  immortal  fascination  there  is  about  mountains ! 
Their  solemnity,  their  silence,  the  grandeur  of  their  outlines, 
the  unspeakable  glory  of  their  lofty  crags  and  "snowy  sum 
mits  old  in  €tory,"  and  their  splendid  inutility! 

When  you  look  upon  the  vague  and  troubled  immensity 
of  the  ocean,  you  think  of  commerce  and  codfish  and  whales. 
When  you  contemplate  the  grassy  waste  of  prairies,  expanding 
to  the  skies,  you  think  of  wheat  and  corn  and  pigs  and  steers 
But  Pike's  Peak  and  Sierra  Blanca  and  Trenchery  and  Culebra 
and  the  Tetons  are  good  for  nothing  except  adoration  and 
worship.  Man  does  not  profane  their  solitudes  where  the  un 
heard  voices  of  the  winds  in  the  forests,  of  waters  falling  in  the 
abyss,  and  the  eagle's  cry  have  no  audience  nor  anniversary. 


THE  SEA. 


The  ancients  had  a  saying  that  those  who  cross  the  sea 
change  their  sky,  but  not  their  mind, — "Qui  trans  mare  cur 
rent  ccdum  ncn  animam  mutant."  No  man  can  escape  from 
himself.  The  companionship  is  inseparable. 

But  there  is  something  more  than  change  of  locality  in  the 
isolation  of  a  long  ocean  voyage.  When  the  last  dim  headland 
disappears,  and  the  continent  vanishes  in  the  deep,  the  separa 
tion  from  the  human  race  is  complete.  All  the  accustomed 
incidents  and  habits  of  daily  life  are  suspended,  and  those  who 
are  assembled  in  that  casual  society  might  be  the  solitary  sur 
vivors  of  mankind. 

Wars  and  catastrophes  and  bereavements  may  shock  the 
world,  but  here  they  are  unheard  and  unknown.  Suns  rise 
and  set  and  rise  again,  but  the  great  ship  makes  no  apparent 
progress.  She  remains  the  centre  of  an  unchanging  circumfer 
ence.  The  vast  and  sombre  monotony  is  unbroken.  Above 
is  the  infinite  abyss  of  the  sky  with  its  clouds  and  stars.  Be 
neath  is  the  infinite  abyss  of  the  sea  with  its  winds  and  waves. 
Sometimes  the  faint  phantom  of  a  sail  appears  above  the  vague 
fluctuating  horizon  and  silently  fades  away,  or  a  stain  of  smoke 
against  the  distant  mist  discloses  the  pathway  of  some  remote 
and  unknown  tenant  of  the  solitude. 

The  moods  of  the  sea  are  endless,  but  it  has  no  compassion. 
It  glitters  in  the  sun,  but  its  smile  is  cruel  and  relentless.  It  is 

387 


388  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

eager  to  devour.  Its  forces  are  destructive.  Each  instant 
is  fraught  with  peril.  Its  agitation  is  incessant,  and  it  lies  in 
wait  to  engulf  and  destroy.  Resisting  every  effort  to  subdue 
its  obstacles,  when  its  baffled  billows  are  cleft,  they  gather  in 
the  ghastly  wake,  and  rage  at  their  discomfiture. 

In  the  presence  of  this  implacable  enemy,  whose  smiles  be 
tray,  whose  voice  is  an  imprecation,  whose  embrace  is  death, 
meditation  becomes  habitual  and  the  mind  changes  like  the 
sky. 


IDYL. 


(Written  upon  a  visit  to  the  old  home  upon  the  river  bluff  in  Atchison.) 
Was  it  on  this  planet  we  lived  alone,  and  loved  in  youth's 
enchanted  kingdom  amid  the  forests  and  by  the  great  lonely 
river,  looking  with  mingled  gaze  at  the  eastern  bluffs  purpled 
by  the  autumnal  sunset,  or  at  the  face  of  the  moon  climbing 
with  sad  steps  the  midnight  sky ;  or  was  it  on  some  remote  star 
in  some  other  life,  recalled  with  rapture  and  longing  unutterable 
and  unavailing? 

"Oh,  death  in  life;  the  days  that  are  no  more!  " 
The  crumbling  excavation  scarce  discernible  among  the 
vines  and  weeds  and  brambles,  deserted  and  inaccessible, 
ancient  as  Palmyra  or  Persepolis  in  seeming — was  this  the 
theatre  whereon  was  enacted  the  intoxicating  drama,  the 
sweet  tragedy  of  human  passion,  grief,  joy,  and  endless  sepa 
ration?  Since  then,  what  devious  wanderings  of  the  soul, 
what  darkened  vistas,  what  trepidation,  what  struggle  and 
'solace,  what  achievements  and  defeat — what  splendor  and 
what  gloom !  The  river  flows,  and  the  landscape  is  unchanged. 
Nature  mocks  with  her  permanence  the  mutability  of  man; 
and  the  steadfast  presence  recalling  life's  vanished  glory  and 
bloom  and  dew  of  morning — how  worthless  and  empty  appear 
all  that  time  gives,  compared  with  what  it  takes  away !  How 
gladly  would  we  exchange  the  prizes  of  ambition  and  fame 
and  wealth  for  the  splendid  consecration  of  youth  and— 

"Wild  with  all  regret — the  days  that  are  no  more." 

389 


EPIGRAMS. 


The  burdens  that  afflict  society  are  voluntary. 


Ideas  are  more  profitable  than  hogs  or  beeves. 


The  poor  man's  chance  depends  upon  what  the  poor  man 
has  to  sell. 

Trusts  and  labor  unions  are  inseparable  evils.     They  are 
twin  relics  of  barbarism. 


The  conscience  of  nations  has  been  disturbed  by  the  injus 
tice  of  modern  society. 


As  nations  advance  in    intelligence  and  morals,   gods  are 
dethroned,  codes  modified,  and  creeds  abandoned. 


A  trust  is  a  thing  that  knows  no  politics  but  plunder  and 
no  principles  except  spoliation  of  the  human  race. 

Socialism  is  the  final  refuge  of  those  who  have  failed  in 
the  struggle  for  life.  It  is  the  prescription  of  those  who  were 
born  tired. 


The  real  difference  in  men  is  not  want  of  opportunity,  but 
in  want  of  capacity  to  discern  opportunity  and  power  to  take 

advantage  of  opportunity. 

390 


EPIGRAMS.  391 

The  man  who  is  unhappy  when  he  is  poor  would  be  un 
happy  if  he  were  rich.  A  beggar  may  be  happier  in  his  rags 
than  a  king  in  his  purple.  Happiness  is  an  endowment,  and 
not  an  acquisition. 

Inasmuch  as  both  force  and  matter  are  infinite  and  inde 
structible,  and  can  be  neither  added  to  nor  subtracted  from, 
it  follows  that  in  some  form  we  have  always  existed,  and  that 
we  shall  continue  in  some  form  to  exist  forever. 


Whether  in  the  battle  to-morrow  I  shall  survive  or  not, 
let  it  be  said  of  me,  that  to  the  oppressed  of  every  clime ;  to 
the  Irishman  suffering  from  the  brutal  acts  of  Great  Britain, 
or  to  the  slave  in  the  bayou  of  the  South,  I  have  at  all  times 
and  places  been  their  advocate;  and  to  the  soldier,  his  widow 
and  orphans,^!  have  been  their  protector  and  friend. 


The  catfish  aristocracy  is  pre-eminently  the  saloon-builder. 
Past  generations  and  perished  races  of  men  have  defied  ob 
livion  by  the  enduring  structures  which  pride,  sorrow,  and 
religion  have  reared  to  perpetuate  the  virtues  of  the  living 
or  the  memories  of  the  dead.  Ghizeh  has  its  pyramids ;  Petra 
its  temples ;  the  Middle  Ages  their  cathedrals ;  Central  America 
its  ruins;  but  Pike  and  Posey  have  their  saloons,  where  the 
patrician  of  the  bottoms  assembles  with  his  peers.  Gathered 
round  a  dusty  stove  choked  with  soggy  driftwood,  he  drinks 
sod  corn  from  a  tin  cup,  plays  "old  sledge"  upon  the  head  of  an 
empty  keg,  and  reels  home  at  nightfall,  yelling  through  the 
timber,  to  his  squalid  cabin. 

There  was  a  profound  truth  in  the  declaration  of  Voltaire 
that  if  there  were  no  god,  it  would  be  necessary  to  invent 


392  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

one.  This  was  flippant  and  irreverent,  perhaps,  but  true.  God 
is  indispensable.  Man  perceives  this,  and  the  higher  his  de 
velopment  the  more  distinct  is  his  perception.  The  popular 
ity  of  Ingersoll  and  his  school  is  not  an  indication  of  infidel 
ity,  but  is  rather  the  strongest  evidence  of  the  religious  spirit 
of  the  times,  its  receptivity,  its  eagerness  for  instruction,  its 
hunger  and  its  thirst  for  knowledge  about  what  can  never  be 
known.  No  age  has  ever  been  so  profoundly  moved  by  the 
consideration  of  the  problems  of  the  hereafter  as  this,  and  I 
have  no  doubt  that  in  response  to  the  search  for  eternal  truth 
another  Christ  will  come  and  another  revelation  be  made. 


In  the  democracy  of  the  dead  all  men  at  last  are  equal. 
There  is  neither  rank  nor  station  nor  prerogative  in  the  repub 
lic  of  the  grave.  At  this  vital  threshold  the  philosopher  ceases 
to  be  wise,  and  the  song  of  the  poet  is  silent.  Dives  casts  off 
his  purple,  and  Lazarus  his  rags;  the  poor  man  is  rich  as  the 
richest,  and  the  rich  man  as  poor  as  the  pauper.  The  creditor 
loses  his  usury,  and  the  debtor  is  acquitted  of  his  obligation. 
There  the  proud  man  surrenders  his  dignities,  the  politician 
his  honors,  the  worldling  his  pleasures;  the  invalid  needs  no 
physician,  and  the  laborer  rests  from  his  unrequited  toil. 
Here  at  last  is  Nature's  final  decree  in  equity.  The  wrongs 
of  time  are  redressed,  injustice  is  expiated,  the  irony  of  fate  is 
refuted,  trie  unequal  distribution  of  wealth,  honor,  capacity, 
pleasure,  and  opportunity,  which  makes  life  so  cruel  and  inex 
plicable  a  tragedy,  ceases  in  the  realm  of  death.  The  strongest 
there  has  no  supremacy,  and  the  weakest  needs  no  defense. 
The  mighty  captain  succumbs  to  the  invincible  adversary 
who  disarms  alike  the  victor  and  the  vanquished. 


EPIGRAMS.  393 

The  purification  of  politics  is  an  iridescent  dream.  Gov 
ernment  is  force.  Politics  is  a  battle  for  supremacy.  Par 
ties  are  the  armies.  The  Decalogue  and  the  Golden  Rule  have 
no  place  in  a  political  campaign.  The  object  is  success.  To 
defeat  the  antagonist  and  expel  the  party  in  power  is  the 
purpose.  The  Republicans  and  Democrats  are  as  irreconcil 
ably  opposed  to  each  other  as  were  Grant  and  Lee  in  the 
Wilderness.  They  use  ballots  instead  of  guns,  but  the  strug 
gle  is  as  unrelenting  and  desperate  and  the  result  sought  for 
the  same.  In  war  it  is  lawful  to  deceive  the  adversary,  to 
hire  Hessians,  to  purchase  mercenaries,  to  mutilate,  to  destroy. 
The  commander  who  lost  the  battle  through  the  activity  of 
his  moral  nature  would  be  the  derision  and  jest  of  history. 
This  modern  cant  about  the  corruption  of  politics  is  fatiguing 
in  the  extreme.  It  proceeds  from  tea-custard  and  syllabub 
dilettanteism  and  frivolous  sentimentalism. 


Lying  in  the  sunshine  among  the  buttercups  and  the  dan- 
elions  of  May,  scarcely  higher  in  intelligence  than  the  mi 
nute  tenants  of  that  mimic  wilderness,  our  earliest  recollec 
tions  are  of  grass;  and  when  the  fitful  fever  is  ended,  and 
the  foolish  wrangle  of  the  market  and  forum  is  closed,  grass 
heals  over  the  scar  which  our  descent  into  the  bosom  of  the 
earth  has  made,  and  the  carpet  of  the  infant  becomes  the 
blanket  of  the  dead.  Grass  is  the  forgiveness  of  Nature — her 
constant  benediction.  Fields  trampled  with  battle,  saturated 
with  blood,  torn  with  the  ruts  of  cannon,  grow  green  again 
with  grass,  and  carnage  is  forgotten.  Streets  abandoned  by 
traffic  become  grass-grown  like  rural  lanes  and  are  obliterated. 
Forests  decay,  harvests  perish,  flowers  vanish,  but  grass  is  im 
mortal.  Beleaguered  by  the  sullen  hosts  of  winter,  it  with- 


394  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

draws  into  the  impregnable  fortress  of  its  subterranean  vitality, 
and  emerges  upon  the  first  solicitation  of  spring.  Sown  by 
the  winds,  by  the  wandering  birds,  propagated  by  the  subtle 
agriculture  of  the  elements  which  are  its  ministers  and  servants, 
it  softens  the  rude  outline  of  the  world.  It  bears  no  blazonry 
of  bloom  to  charm  the  senses  with  fragrance  or  splendor,  but 
its  homely  hue  is  more  enchanting  than  the  lily  or  the  rose. 
It  yields  no  fruit  in  earth  or  air,  and  yet,  should  its  harvest  fail 
for  a  single  year,  famine  would  depopulate  the  world. 


GARFIELD:  THE  MAN  OF  THE  PEOPLE. 


I. 

THE  SPRINGS  OF  His  SUCCESS. 

In  his  remarkable  treatise  upon  the  influence  of  "Ameri 
can  Institutions,"  M.  de  Tocqueville  observes  that  the  natural 
propensity  of  democracies  is  to  reject  the  most  eminent  citi 
zens  as  rulers;  not  from  hatred  of  superiority,  nor  fear  of  dis 
tinguished  talents,  but  because  the  passion  for  equality  de 
mands  the  award  of  approbation  to  those  alone  who  have  risen 
by  popular  support. 

This  was  written  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  century  ago, 
and  the  tendency,  so  perceptible  to  the  philosopher  then,  has 
increased  with  accelerating  force,  till  what  seemed  a  vague  but 
ingenious  generalization  is  now  recognized  as  one  of  the  laws 
of  our  political  system. 

George  Washington,  the  first  President  of  the  Republic,  was 
by  birth  and  habit  an  aristocrat.  He  lived  like  a  nobleman, 
upon  a  great  inherited  estate,  in  haughty  and  dignified  seclu 
sion,  master  of  slaves,  and  possessor  of  the  largest  private  for 
tune  in  the  United  States.  His  journeys  were  like  those  of  a 
royal  personage. 

The  descent  from  Washington  to  Jackson  was  rapid,  and 
has  been  swifter  since.  It  is  quite  inconceivable  that  any 
party  to-day  would  nominate  as  its  candidate  for  the  Presi 
dency  the  richest  man  in  the  country,  traveling  en  prince,  and 

395 


396  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS 

separated  by  insuperable  barriers  of  rank  and  station  from  the 
common  people. 

Poverty  may  be  a  misfortune,  uncomfortable  and  hard  to 
endure;  but  as  an  element  of  strength  in  public  life  it  cannot 
be  disregarded. 

The  great  leaders  from  1860  to  1870,  the  most  momentous 
epoch  in  our  history,  were  all  of  humble  origin — Lincoln,  Grant, 
Wilson,  Morton,  Sheridan,  Andrew,  Garrison,  and  the  other  chief 
figures  of  that  period,  without  exception,  had  no  heritage  but 
an  honest  name.  Wendell  Phillips  is  the  only  conspicuous 
character  of  that  time  who  was  born  to  wealth  and  culture — 
"with  a  silver  spoon  in  his  mouth." 

Garfield  emerged  from  an  obscurity  as  profound  as  that  of 
his  fellows  in  fame,  and  reached  an  elevation  as  lofty,  and  it 
is  perhaps  not  too  much  to  say  that  he  succeeded  less  in  spite 
of  his  disadvantages  than  because  of  them. 

They  were  the  wings  wherewith  he  flew.  The  defects  of 
his  boyish  training  and  scholarship,  the  narrow  poverty  of  his 
youth,  the  humble  avocations  of  his  early  manhood,  the  mod 
est  simplicity  of  his  later  life  were  favorable  to  his  fortunes. 
They  kept  him  at  the  level  of  the  masses  from  whom  he  sprung, 
not  alienated  from  them  by  extraordinary  endowments,  wealth, 
or  special  refinement,  but  exhibiting  only  a  higher  degree  or 
more  vigorous  activity  of  the  qualities  and  powers  usual  among 
men;  industry,  patience,  integrity;  so  that  the  great  body  of 
citizens  in  supporting  him  appeared  to  be  indirectly  paying 
tribute  of  respect  to  themselves,  and  not  yielding  either  vol 
untary  or  reluctant  obedience  to  a  superior. 

My  personal  acquaintance  with  Garfield  began  in  Septem 
ber,  1854,  when  we  were  students  at  Williams  College.  We 
were  of  kindred  blood,  being  both  descended,  he  on  his  moth- 


GARFIELD.  397 

er's  side,  from  Edmund  Ingalls,  the  founder  of  Lynn,  in  1628. 

He  came  to  Williams,  with  three  companions,  from  an 
Ohio  academy — Hiram,  I  think — and  entered  the  Junior  class. 
He  was  some  years  the  older,  but,  his  preparatory  studies 
having  been  delayed  by  necessity,  he  was  graduated  a  year 
later  than  I,  in  the  class  of  1856.  Our  relations  were  cor 
dial  and  friendly,  but  not  intimate.  We  were  associates  on 
the  board  of  editors  of  the  Williams  Quarterly,  a  college  maga 
zine  of  some  pretensions  in  those  days,  and  in  the  lecture- 
room  and  chapel;  on  the  campus  and  in  the  literary  societies 
we  met  daily,  in  the  unrestrained  and  sometimes  hilarious 
familiarity  of  college  intercourse. 

He  immediately  took  high  rank,  but  not  the  highest,  in 
scholarship.  He  identified  himself  actively  with  the  religious 
life  of  the  college,  but  there  was  nothing  of  gloomy  bigotry  or 
monastic  asceticism  about  his  religion.  He  never  held  him 
self  aloof  from  the  society  of  intelligent  and  vivacious  sinners, 
while  enjoying  the  fellowship  and  communion  of  the  saints. 

Like  most  bright  men,  he  wrote  poetry,  or  what  by  courtesy 
was  called  such,  and  in  one  of  our  last  interviews,  while  re 
calling  some  of  the  incidents  of  our  college  days,  he  alluded 
to  his  early  indiscretions  in  blank  verse,  and  jestingly  said  he 
never  had  any  serious  apprehensions  about  the  result  of  the 
Presidential  campaign  till  some  injudicious  friend  resuscitated 
from  the  Quarterly  one  of  his  metrical  compositions  and  had 
it  reprinted  as  an  argument  for  his  election. 

He  was  particularly  active  in  debate  and  declamation,  and 
gave  promise  of  strong,  but  not  brilliant,  oratory.  In  casting 
his  horoscope,  the  students  predicted  that  he  would  be  a 
teacher  or  a  clergyman.  No  one  dreamed  that  he  would  have 
a  great  political  career. 


398  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

I  recall  with  photographic  distinctness  his  personal  appear 
ance  on  the  occasion  of  his  delivery  of  an  oration  in  the  old 
chapel  at  the  close  of  his  Junior  year,  in  the  summer  of  1855, 
when  he  was  twenty-four  years  of  age.  The  garb  of  a  country 
tailor  lent  no  grace  to  his  angular,  bony,  and  muscular  frame. 
His  complexion  was  white  and  florid,  with  mirthful  blue  eyes. 
Yellow  hair  fell  back  from  a  brow  of  unusual  height  and  prom 
inence,  and  a  sparse  blond  beard  scarcely  concealed  the  heavy 
jaw  and  the  weak,  sensuous  mouth,  whose  peculiar  protrusion 
was  the  most  noticeable  feature  of  his  striking  countenance, 
whether  in  speech  or  repose. 

I  did  not  see  him  after  my  graduation  until  I  entered  the 
Senate  in  1873. 

He  had  changed  almost  beyond  recognition.  He  had  be 
come  stout,  heavy,  and  dusky,  with  a  perceptible  droop  of 
the  head  and  shoulders,  as  if  bent  with  burdens.  But  the 
old  cordial,  effusive,  affectionate  manner  remained ;  a  familiar, 
exuberant  freedom  that  had  none  of  the  restraint  and  efface- 
ment  which  commonly  characterizes  the  moods  of  the  man 
who  has  mingled  much  with  men. 

Indeed,  to  the  very  last  it  was  apparent  that  Garfield  was 
country-born.  There  was  an  indefinable  something  in  his 
voice,  his  dress,  his  walk,  his  ways,  redolent  of  woods  and 
fields  rather  than  of  drawing-rooms,  diplomacy,  statecraft, 
and  crowded  streets.  There  was  a  splendid  rusticity  in  his 
simple  nature  which  breathed  unmistakably  of  the  genera 
tions  of  yeomen  from  whom  he  sprung. 

As  an  occasional  visitor  to  the  House  of  Representatives, 
I  often  heard  him  upon  the  floor.  He  was  not  a  ready,  off 
hand,  skillful  debater.  He  was  disconcerted  by  sharp  and 
sudden  attack.  He  was  without  capacity  for  retort  and  rep- 


GARFIEUX  399 

artee.  He  had  no  emergency-bag,  but  in  the  ability  to  deal 
with  large  subjects,  after  deliberation,  with  broad  and  com 
prehensive  strenth  and  candor,  he  was  not  excelled  by  any 
contemporary.  He  had  a  strong,  penetrating  voice,  pitched 
in  the  middle  key,  with  a  slightly  nasal  and  metallic  quality, 
and  an  air  of  conviction  which  compelled  respect. 

He  told  no  stories  and  shot  off  no  fireworks  on  the  stump. 
His  earlier  speeches  were  highly  rhetorical  and  pedantic ;  but 
he  abandoned  the  pyrotechnic  style,  cultivated  simplicity, 
and  became  a  master  of  the  difficult  art  of  clear,  condensed 
statement  of  points  and  conclusions. 

There  was  no  capacity  in  which  Garfield  was  not  surpassed 
by  some  of  his  associates.  He  wore  the  stars  of  a  major- 
general,  but  his  achievements  as  a  soldier  are  forgotten.  As 
an  orator  he  was  eclipsed  by  Conkling,  and  as  a  debater  he 
was  far  outrun  by  Elaine.  As  a  lawyer  he  will  not  be  remem 
bered.  As  a  statesman  his  name  is  not  imperishably  associ 
ated  with  any  great  measure  of  national  policy  or  internal 
reform.  He  had  few  of  the  qualities  of  successful  political 
leadership,  but  in  public  estimation  he  is  enshrined  as  the 
foremost  man  of  his  generation. 

Much  of  this  sentiment,  no  doubt,  is  due  to  his  tragic  death, 
but  the  real  secret  of  his  hold  upon  the  affections  of  mankind 
has  not  yet  been  detected. 

Garfield  was  splendidly  equipped  and  magnificently  dis 
qualified  for  executive  functions.  Had  he  lived,  I  suppose  his 
administration  would  have  been  a  disastrous  failure.  Fate, 
in  one  sense,  was  kind  to  him.  He  died  at  a  good  time  for  his 
fame. 

The  combination  of  intellectual  and  executive  power  is 
rare  among  men.  I  do  not  recall  in  ancient  or  modern  history 


4oo  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

one  man  illustrious  as  a  legislator  or  renowned  as  an  orator 
who  has  been  equally  distinguished  for  executive  capacity. 
Possibly  the  reason  may  be  that  opportunity  for  both  is  sel 
dom  presented  to  the  same  person,  but  the  main  explanation 
undoubtedly  is  that  the  habits  of  mind  required  for  oratory 
and  for  action  in  emergencies,  in  cabinets  or  on  battle-fields, 
are  essentially  different,  and  in  most  natures  incompatible. 
It  is  quite  as  difficult  to  conceive  of  Daniel  Webster  in  com 
mand  at  Appomattox  as  of  Grant  delivering  the  reply  to  Hayne. 
So  it  seemed  to  me  that  Garfield  in  giving  up  the  Senate,  to 
which  he  had  just  been  chosen,  and  accepting  the  Presidency, 
invited  his  evil  destiny.  In  that  congenial  forum  to  which 
he  had  so  long  aspired  he  might  have  long  remained,  with 
increasing  fame  and  honor,  the  foremost  champion  of  those 
potential  ideas  which  are  revolutionizing  the  world. 

Sherman  believes  Garfield  betrayed  him  at  the  Chicago 
convention,  but  I  am  sure  that  his  nomination  was  entirely 
unexpected.  He  was  in  a  way  a  fatalist,  and  believed  he  was 
destined  to  be  President,  but  not  then. 

A  few  weeks  before  the  convention  I  was  talking  with  a 
friend  in  the  Senate  restaurant  about  the  situation.  We  had 
mentioned  Garfield  as  a  possible  dark  horse  if  Elaine's  enemies 
made  a  deadlock,  and  just  then  he  entered,  and  we  called  him 
to  our  table.  We  told  him  the  subject  of  our  conversation, 
and  jocularly  tendered  him  the  nomination.  The  talk  that 
ensued  took  on  a  graver  tone,  but  it  left  no  doubt  in  my  mind 
that,  while  he  regarded  the  Presidency  among  the  possibilities 
of  his  future,  he  did  not  consider  it  probable  for  many  years 
to  come. 

As  I  recall  that  interview,  it  seems  incredible  to  remem- 


GARFIELD.  401 

ber  that  within  less  than  eighteen  months  from  that  hour  he 
was  nominated,  elected,  inaugurated,  and  slain! 

Indelibly  inscribed  in  my  recollection  is  the  appearance  of 
Garfield  beneath  the  blaze  of  an  electric  light  in  the  balcony 
of  the  Riggs  House  on  the  occasion  of  a  serenade  and  reception, 
tendered  him  after  his  return  from  the  convention. 

He  seemed  to  have  reached  the  apex  of  human  ambition.. 
He  was  a  representative  in  Congress.  He  was  a  senator-elect 
from  his  native  State.  He  was  a  delegate  to  the  convention 
that  nominated  him  as  the  candidate  of  his  party  for  the  Pres 
idency.  Such  an  accumulation  of  honors  had  never  before 
fallen  upon  an  American  citizen.  A  vast  multitude  thronged 
the  intersecting  streets,  listening  to  his  brief  speech  attentively 
and  respectfully,  but  without  enthusiasm.  They  were  parti 
sans  of  Elaine,  of  Grant,  of  Conkling,  of  Morton,  of  Sherman, 
and  the  passions  of  the  gigantic  contest  had  not  yet  subsided. 
The  silence  was  ominous.  Nemesis  already  stood,  a  menacing 
apparition,  in  the  black  shadows. 

I  spoke  to  a  friend,  who  stood  near  me  in  the  hem  of  the 
audience,  of  the  strange  mutations  of  fortune  the  spectacle 
suggested  to  me,  little  thinking  then  of  the  yet  more  memo 
rable  vicissitudes  so  soon  to  follow ;  the  abrupt  termination  of 
those  magnificent  hopes  and  ambitions  through  the  dark  vista 
of  the  near  future ;  the  sudden  catastrophe  of  an  exasperated 
destiny;  premature  death  on  the  threshold  of  incomparable 
prophecy  of  greatness  and  renown.  Could  coming  events  cast 
their  shadows  before,  he  might  have  discerned  those  words  of 
doom,  the  last  that  were  ever  traced  by  his  feeble  and  trembling 
hand — "  Strangulatus  pro  republica!" 

The  administration  of  President  Garfield  began  under  the 
happiest  auspices.  It  was  a  second  Era  of  Good  Feeling. 


4Q2  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Those  were  halcyon  days.  The  lion  and  the  iamb  had  lain 
down  together.  Mr.  Garfield  had  not  been  identified  with 
the  internecine  feuds  and  quarrels  intestine  which  had  rent 
his  party  asunder.  He  had  made  a  treaty  of  amity,  peace, 
and  concord  with  Conkling  and  Grant.  No  Executive  ever 
came  into  the  possession  of  power  with  greater  opportunities. 
The  people  were  weary  of  schism,  duels,  and  invective.  Gar- 
field  was  exempt  from  these,  and  enjoyed  the  respect  and  cor 
dial  good-will  of  the  people. 

American  Presidents  have  not  always  been  the  highest 
types  of  manhood.  Selected  usually  because  they  were  avail 
able,  rather  than  because  they  were  fit,  they  have  inspired  lit 
tle  enthusiasm  except  among  those  appointed  to  office. 

But  here  at  last  was  an  ideal  occupant  of  the  White  House, 
for  whom  the  dreamers  had  so  long  sighed  in  vain — a  man  who 
was  a  soldier,  a  statesman,  an  orator,  a  scholar,  a  gentleman, 
and  a  Christian ! 

His  public  career,  while  not  free  from  error,  had  been,  in 
the  main,  broad  and  satisfactory.  From  obscurity  he  had 
emerged  by  the  force  of  native  genius  and  attained  the  loftiest 
elevation  without  losing  his  head  and  becoming  either  "bossy" 
or  giddy.  The  people  justly  regarded  him  with  contented 
pride  as  a  signal  illustration  of  the  scope  afforded  by  popular 
institutions  for  talents,  industry,  and  ambition. 

His  personal  qualities  were  attractive,  his  presence  impres 
sive,  and  his  address  equally  removed  from  familiarity  and 
from  reserve. 

His  temperament  was  ardent  and  impulsive.  He  desired 
intensely  to  be  written  as  one  who  loved  his  fellow-men.  He 
was  incapable  of  intrigue  or  hatred.  He  had  no  personal 
enemies.  His  long  active  parliamentary  life  had  been  with- 


GARFIELD.  403 

out  rancor  or  bitterness.  He  had  a  large,  oroad  brain,  well 
furnished  by  study,  and  a  genuine  love  for  literature  which 
survived  his  youth  and  was  the  best  solace  of  laborious  years. 
His  impulses  were  high  and  generous.  He  intended  to  have 
pure  public  service,  and  to  administer  the  government  as  a 
trust  confided  to  him  by  Providence,  and  for  whose  exercise 
he  was  directly  responsible  to  God. 

One  of  Garfield's  first  public  acts  after  his  inauguration 
was  the  reception,  in  the  gathering  gloom  of  the  twilight  of 
that  dismal  March  day,  in  the  Bast  Room  of  the  White  House, 
of  the  venerable  Mark  Hopkins,  former  president  of  the  col 
lege,  and  a  delegation  of  Williams  alumni,  to  whose  address 
of  congratulation  he  made  a  most  pathetic  and  feeling  re 
sponse,  which  seemed  burdened  with  prophetic  sadness,  as  if 
he  already  felt  the  solemn  shadow  of  the  disaster  that  was  so 
soon  to  terminate  his  career. 

"For  a  quarter  of  a  century,"  said  he,  "Doctor  Hopkins 
has  seemed  to  me  a  man  apart  from  other  men;  like  one 
standing  on  a  mountain  summit,  embodying  in  himself  much 
of  the  majesty  of  earth,  and  reflecting  in  his  life  something  of 
the  sunlight  and  glory  of  heaven." 

The  Senate  assembled  in  extraordinary  session  immediately 
after  the  inauguration,  and  thereafter  I  met  him  constantly 
in  connection  with  public  affairs  till  the  adjournment  in  May. 
Conkling,  exasperated  by  the  selection  of  Elaine  as  Secretary 
of  State,  precipitated  that  tremendous  battle  which  resulted 
in  his  own  overthrow,  the  loss  of  New  York,  the  defeat  of 
Elaine  four  years  later,  and  the  election  of  Grover  Cleveland. 

A  very  perceptible  but  indefinable  change  came  over  Gar- 
field.  He  lost  his  equanimity  and  became  infirm  of  purpose. 
He  was  tortured  by  the  importunate  mob  of  place-hunters 


404  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

that  surged  through  his  reception  chamber,  as  he  said,  ''like 
the  volume  of  the  Mississippi  River."  The  weight  of  re 
sponsibility  oppressed  him.  The  duties  of  the  Chief  Magis 
trate  were  irksome.  During  his  public  life  hitherto  he  had 
little  to  do  with  patronage,  and  now  he  could  attend  to  little 
else.  He  disliked  to  say  "no."  Wanting  to  please  everybody, 
he  let  "7  dare  not  wait  upon  /  would."  His  love  of  justice  im 
pelled  him  to  hear  both  sides,  and  his  mind  was  so  recep 
tive  that  he  felt  the  force  of  all  arguments,  and  the  last  was 
the  strongest.  He  hesitated  to  decide  between  hungry  and 
angry  contestants,  so  that,  without  being  irresolute  or  vacil 
lating,  ne  seemed  sometimes  to  halt  and  doubt,  to  the  verge 
of  timidity. 

His  nature  was  so  generous  that  he  instinctively  supported 
the  vanquished,  whether  enemy  or  friend.  He  sympathized 
with  the  under  dog.  This  trait  in  his  character  was  strikingly 
exemplified  while  he  lay  on  his  death-bed,  at  the  termination 
of  the  Senatorial  conflict  at  Albany.  He  heard  of  the  election 
of  Miller  and  Lapham,  and,  though  Garfield  himself  was  the 
principal  victim  of  the  struggle,  he  said  with  great  earnestness : 
4 '  I  am  sorry  for  Conkling.  I  will  give  him  anything  he  wants, 
or  any  appointment  he  may  desire." 

Morally,  he  was  invertebrate.  He  had  no  bony  structure. 
He  surrendered,  unconsciously  perhaps,  to  the  powerful,  ag 
gressive,  artful  domination  of  Blame,  and  became  like  clay 
in  the  hands  of  the  potter.  After  the  battle  had  raged  for  a 
time,  a  "Committee  of  Safety'  was  appointed  by  Republi 
can  senators,  and  a  hollow  truce  was  patched  up.  If  certain 
things  were  done,  Conkling  amiably  said  he  would  go  into  the 
cloak-room  and  hold  his  nose  while  other  nominations  were 
confirmed,  in  order  to  break  the  deadlock.  After  consenting 


GARFIELD.  405 

to  the  compromise,  Elaine  or  some  other  past  master  of  diplo 
macy  convinced  Garfield  that  it  was  an  ignominious  and  dis 
graceful  back-down  on  his  part.  So,  yielding  first  to  the 
blandishments  of  the  "half-breeds,"  and  then  to  the  threats 
of  the  "stalwarts,"  at  last,  in  a  moment  of  weak  desperation, 
consulting  no  one,  he  withdrew  the  New  York  nominations 
in  gross,  made  further  compromise  impossible,  and  the  whole 
political  fabric  tumbled  from  turret  to  foundation-stone  in 
irretrievable  ruin. 


II. 

His  LIFE  DRAMA. 

I  left  my  home  at  Atchison,  the  evening  of  June  30,  1881, 
to  deliver  the  annual  commencement  address  at  Williams 
College. 

President  Garfield,  the  most  distinguished  graduate,  was 
to  be  present,  to  celebrate  with  his  classmates  the  twenty-fifth 
anniversary  of  their  graduation. 

Alighting  from  the  train  at  Rochester,  New  York,  Saturday 
morning,  I  heard  with  incredulity  the  rumor  of  his  assassin 
ation  just  as  he  was  starting  on  his  journey  for  the  hills  of 
Berkshire. 

The  last  time  I  saw  him  alive,  just  at  the  close  of  the  special 
session  of  the  Senate,  he  alluded  to  the  pleasure  with  which 
he  anticipated  this  visit,  and  to  the  grateful  sympathy  and 
help  he  had  received  from  his  college  friends.  Indeed,  he  always 
felt  and  manifested  a  peculiar  interest  in  his  alma  mater  and 
in  President  Hopkins,  whom  he  regarded  as  the  greatest  and 
wisest  instructor  of  the  century.  "A  pine  log,"  he  said,  "with 


406  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  student  at  one  end  and  Doctor  Hopkins  at  the  other, 
would  be  a  liberal  education." 

Garfield  touched  life  at  more  points  than  most  men.  There 
was  no  company  in  which  he  could  be  wholly  a  stranger,  nor 
any  man,  however  low  or  however  lofty,  in  whom  he  could  not 
find  something  in  common,  so  that  he  was  never  isolated  nor 
detached  from  his  associates  at  any  stage  of  his  pathway, 
from  the  rude  hut  of  his  nativity,  in  the  clearing  of  the  Ohio 
forest,  to  the  fatal  eminence  from  which  he  was  borne  to  his 
grave. 

His  imagination  was  very  active.  He  was  fond  of  poetry, 
music,  sculpture,  painting,  the  drama,  and  the  classics.  He 
believed  in  signs,  omens,  portents,  and  prodigies.  He  dwelt  on 
coincidences  and  anniversaries,  and  during  the  pendency  of 
the  troubles  that  disturbed  the  early  months  of  his  adminis 
rtation  I  heard  him  allude,  half  in  jest  and  half  in  earnest,  to 
the  fact  that  his  inauguration  occurred  on  Friday,  in  explana 
tion  of  the  complexities  of  Fate. 

Being  aware  of  this  superstitious  tendency,  I  was  inter 
ested  to  know  if  he  felt  any  premonition  of  the  calamity  that 
was  lying  in  wait  for  Him  the  morning  of  his  assassination. 
Meeting  Mr.  Elaine,  at  the  funeral  at  Cleveland,  with  whom 
he  rode  to  the  Pennsylvania  Station  to  take  the  train,  I  asked 
him  if  there  was  anything  in  the  mood  or  conversation  of  the 
President,  as  they  rode  down  the  Avenue  in  his  carriage,  that 
indicated  any  shadowy  apprehension  of  the  tragedy  that  was 
so  soon  to  culminate. 

On  the  contrary,  Mr.  Elaine  said  that  during  the  twenty 
years  of  their  acquaintance  he  had  never  seen  the  President 
exhibit  such  unrestrained  exuberance  of  almost  boyish  happi 
ness,  such  high  animal  spirits,  as  in  that  hour.  His  mother 


GARFIELD.  407 

and  his  wife  had  just  convalesced.  The  storms  that  had 
darkened  his  political  horizon  had  cleared.  His  enemies  were 
baffled.  He  was  to  visit  Williams  and  recall  the  splendid 
associations  of  youth.  This  was  to  be  followed  by  a  tour 
through  New  England,  for  which  great  preparations  had  been 
made.  Then  he  intended  to  journey  to  Ohio  and  pass  his  sum 
mer  vacation  at  Mentor  in  the  broad,  free,  natural  life  in  the 
country  home  which  he  had  so  long  labored  to  secure.  His 
own  health,  which  had  been  shaken  by  strain  and  stress,  was 
established.  His  mind  was  full  of  great  plans  for  future  work. 
He  intended  to  visit  Yorktown  and  make  an  historical  speech 
that  should  fitly  commemorate  the  centennial  of  the  Ameri 
can  Revolution.  On  the  anniversary  of  Chickamauga  he  had 
planned  to  attend  the  reunion  of  his  old  army  comrades.  He 
had  been  invited  to  be  present  at  the  Cotton  Exposition  at 
Atlanta,  where  it  was  his  purpose  to  deliver  an  oration  that 
would  be  notable  as  a  disclosure  of  his  views  on  the  race  ques 
tion  and  his  intentions  toward  the  South.  He  had  spoken  of 
all  these  things  to  Mr.  Elaine,  and  was  repeating  some  para 
graphs  he  had  already  written  for  the  speech  at  Atlanta,  when 
the  carriage  stopped  at  the  door  above  whose  lintel  was  in 
scribed  for  him,  invisibly,  the  legend  written  over  the  gate  of 
the  Inferno:  "Las date  ogni  speranza  voi  ch'  entrate." 

A  silver  star  let  into  the  floor  of  the  waiting-room  long 
marked  the  spot  where  he  fell.  A  tablet  of  marble  in  the 
opposite  wall  bore  his  name  in  letters  of  gold. 

Thither  through  all  his  wanderings  his  footsteps  had  tend 
ed.  This  was  his  goal.  "Every  man,"  says  Hugo,  "is  the 
centre  of  a  circle  whose  fatal  circumference  he  cannot  pass. 
Within,  he  lives;  beyond,  he  perishes." 


408  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

But  as  no  public  man,  whatever  his  powers,  can  greatly 
succeed  unless  identified  with  some  idea,  purpose,  or  convic 
tion  existing  in  the  minds  of  the  people,  so  in  this  respect 
Garfield  was  most  fortunate.  His  life  was  a  strenuous  protest 
against  injustice.  He  was  an  apostle  for  liberty  of  conscience, 
liberty  of  action,  and  liberty  of  thought.  He  had  mastered 
the  statistics  and  enlarged  the  boundaries  of  freedom.  The 
public  honor,  faith,  and  credit  were  as  valuable  to  him  as  his 
own,  and  he  labored  without  ceasing  that  the  creed  of  human 
rights  should  not  be  an  empty  formula,  nor  the  brotherhood 
of  man  a  mocking  dream. 

Life  abounds  in  tragic  mysteries,  and  we  are  not  authorized 
to  ask  a  vindication  of  the  decrees  of  Fate,  but  the  termination 
of  Garfield 's  career  seems  an  insoluble  problem.  Adequate 
motive  and  intelligible  object  both  are  absent,  and  as  if  it  had 
been  determined  that  no  element  of  horror  -should  be  wanting, 
there  was  the  agony  of  prolonged  dissolution,  the  incapacity 
and  wrangles  of  blundering  surgeons,  the  lying  bulletins,  the 
appalling  revelations  of  the  autopsy,  the  frightful  distortion 
which  compelled  the  premature  seclusion  of  the  remains,  and, 
as  the  crowning  climax  of  atrocities,  the  revolting  and  blas 
phemous  ravings  of  the  assassin,  which  made  his  trial  for  an 
unprovoked  and  brutal  murder  a  most  humiliating  burlesque 
upon  the  administration  of  justice. 

Passing  the  city  building  in  Washington  one  morning 
\vhile  the  trial  of  Guiteau  was  on,  I  made  my  way  into  the 
crowded  court-room  by  the  courtesy  of  the  Marshal.  The 
execrable  criminal  interrupted  the  counsel  and  the  witnesses 
at  every  sentence  with  foulest  vituperation  unrebuked,  the 
greedy  audience  greeting  with  brutal  laughter  the  volleys  of 


GARFIELD.  409 

obscene  and  profane  invective  with  which  he  assailed  the 
prosecution  and  the  defense. 

Such  a  revelation  of  mental  and  moral  deformity  has  sel 
dom  been  made.  Not  one  good  deed  nor  any  generous  impulse 
marred  the  harmonious  and  symmetrical  infamy  of  the  life 
of  the  wretched  malefactor.  He  was  insane  as  the  tiger  and 
the  cobra  are  insane.  He  stands  detached  from  mankind  in 
eternal  isolation  as  the  one  human  being  without  a  virtue, 
and  without  an  apologist,  a  defender,  or  a  friend.  Even 
among  the  basest,  he  had  no  comrade.  There  was  no  society 
in  which  he  would  not  be  a  stranger.  He  was  the  one  felon 
whom  no  lawyer  could  protect,  no  jury  acquit,  for  he  was  con 
demned  in  that  forum  from  whose  verdict  there  is  neither 
exculpation  nor  appeal.  He  must  be  an  alien  in  hell. 

The  world  has  no  more  conspicuous  illustration  of  the 
truth  that  nothing  is  so  unprofitable  as  wickedness.  The 
thief  robs  himself.  The  adulterer  pollutes  himself .  The  mur- 
dere  inflicts  a  deeper  wound  upon  himself  than  that  which 
kills  his  victim.  Behind  every  criminal  in  the  universe, 
silent  but  relentless  stands,  with  uplifted  blade,  the  shadow 
of  vengeance  and  retribution. 

Happening  to  be  in  Washington  on  public  business  when 
the  tragedy  closed  by  the  death  of  the  President  at  Elberon, 
I  was  designated  by  the  Vice- President  as  one  of  the  Senate 
committee  to  receive  the  remains  at  the  Capitol  and  attend 
the  funeral  at  Cleveland. 

The  procession  reached  the  east  door  of  the  Rotunda  just 
at  the  close  of  a  bright,  still  September  day.  A  military 
escort,  with  arms  reversed  and  trailing  banners,  deployed 
upon  the  plaza.  From  the  brazen  tubes  that  were  wont 
to  blow  martial  sounds,  reverberating  along  the  marble  col- 


410  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

onnades,  floated  the  strains  of  "The  Sweet  By-and-By"  and 
"Nearer,  My  God,  to  Thee,"  lost  in  the  dim  and  glowing  sky. 

The  dead  Commander-in -Chief  was  borne  by  soldiers  up 
the  stairway,  past  the  very  place  where,  six  brief  months  be 
fore,  he  had  taken  the  oath  of  office,  delivered  his  inaugural, 
and  turned  to  kiss  his  wife  and  mother,  amid  the  hoarse  sal 
utations  of  thundering  batteries  and  the  tumultuous  acclaim 
of  an  uncounted  multitude. 

The  bearers  were  followed  into  the  Rotunda  by  Vice- 
President  Arthur,  the  Cabinet,  and  the  Committees,  all  other 
spectators  being  excluded.  As  the  casket  was  placed  upon 
the  same  catafalque  that  had  borne  the  coffin  of  Lincoln  the 
last  rays  of  the  setting  sun  streamed  through  the  golden  haze 
along  the  low  horizon  above  the  hills  of  Arlington  and  filled 
the  upper  portion  of  the  dome,  above  the  still  unfinished  fres 
coes  of  Brumidi,  with  vanishing  radiance,  while  the  sombre 
shadows  of  twilight  had  already  settled  upon  the  silent  group 
below. 

The  lid  was  laid  back,  and  the  official  procession,  led  by 
Arthur,  every  inch  a  king,  arm  in  arm  with  Blaine,  pallid  and 
haggard,  who  looked  as  if,  with  Mark  Antony,  he  might  have 

said, 

"Bear  with  me! 

My  heart  is  in  the  coffin  there  with  Caesar 
And  I  must  pause  till  it  come  back  to  me  " 

marched  slowly  eastward,  and  departed. 

The  desolating  agony  and  torture  of  the  hand-to-hand  bat 
tle  with  Death  were  depicted  upon  the  wasted  and  distorted 
features  of  the  martyr. 

One  spectator,  after  looking  an  instant  at  the  awful  mask, 
sank  groaning  upon  his  knees,  with  his  face  in  his  hands,  as  if 
to  shut  out  from  his  brain  the  image  of  ghastly  horror. 


GARFIELD.  411 

The  unending  file  of  visitors  was  then  admitted,  and,  from 
Wednesday  till  Friday  noon,  hundreds  of  thousands  passed 
silently  between  the  guards,  with  mingled  grief  for  the  victim 
and  execration  for  the  murderer. 

The  Rotunda  was  then  cleared  and  closed,  the  vast  floor 
covered  with  seats  for  the  final  exercises,  and  at  midday  the 
widow  and  orphans  passed  alone  into  the  great  vaulted  cham 
ber,  and,  without  attendants  or  witnesses,  took  their  last  fare 
well  of  him  who  to  them  had  been  not  ruler,  or  magistrate, 
or  hero,  but  husband,  father,  companion,  and  friend. 

History,  it  seems  to  me,  contains  no  more  dramatic  inci 
dent  than  that  closing  interview.  The  place,  the  occasion, 
the  actors,  the  accessories,  were  in  the  last  degree  imposing 
and  pathetic,  and  will  be  a  theme  for  the  artist  so  long  as  the 
heart  has  passions  and  life  has  woes.  And  it  was  specially 
creditable  to  humanity  that  when  it  was  announced  that  Mrs. 
Garfield  and  the  family  were  in  the  Capitol,  and  desired  to  be 
alone  for  a  brief  space  with  the  dead,  the  crowds  that  were 
struggling  for  admission  and  impatient  at  delay  simultane 
ously  withdrew  and  disappeared,  respecting  her  sorrow  as  if  it 
had  been  their  own. 

The  scene  later  in  the  afternoon,  in  the  Rotunda,  at  the 
closing  ceremonies,  was  impressive  beyond  precedent. 

For  the  first  time  in  the  annals  of  national  bereavement, 
formal  solemnities  were  observed  in  the  presence  of  a  seated 
audience  beneath  the  dome. 

For  the  moment  dissensions  seemed  to  have  been  allayed, 
and  the  chiefs  of  contending  factions  were  reconciled  in  the 
presence  of  an  unexampled  calamity.  All  realized  that  Gar- 
field's  death  was  the  direct  result  of  the  infuriated  passions 


412  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

of  ambitious  leaders   fighting  selfishly  for  the  possession  of 
power  and  the  gratification  of  revenge. 

By  the  catafalque  sat  the  new  President,  chief  benefici 
ary  of  Guiteau's  bullet;  recipient  of  the  main  prize  in  what 
Edmunds  called  the  "lottery  of  assassination."  He  repre 
sented  the  complete  restoration  and  ascendency  of  that  fac 
tion  in  his  party  that  seemed  to  have  been  hopelessly  de 
feated  at  Chicago.  Time's  whirligig  for  him  had  revolved 
swiftly.  Near  by  were  the  Cabinet  ministers,  their  dreams  of 
power,  their  plans  of  aggrandizement,  about  to  be  entombed 
with  their  dead  chieftain. 

Across  the  space  was  Grant,  his  impassive,  resolute, 
sphinx-like  face  bent  forward,  intently  pensive,  as  though 
inwardly  meditating  upon  the  strange  mutation  by  which  the 
man  who  snatched  from  his  grasp  the  coveted  prize  of  a  third 
nomination,  so  nearly  won,  now  lay  in  cold  obstruction  and 
everlasting  silence,  where  ambition  could  no  longer  inspire 
nor  glory  thrill. 

Elbow  to  elbow  with  him  was  his  successor,  Hayes,  weak 
est  of  Presidents,  whose  indistinguishable  term  already  seemed 
like  a  hiatus  in  history.  Farther  on  were  Sherman  the  soldier 
and  Sherman  the  Senator,  whose  candidacy  for  the  Presidency 
Garfield  had  been  chosen  as  the  delegate  to  present  and  espouse, 
and  Sheridan,  the  victor  of  Winchester,  and  a  great  host  of 
heroes  and  statesmen  <such  as  had  seldom  assembled  around 
the  unconscious  dust  of  an  American  citizen. 

As  evening  fell  the  remains  were  taken  to  the  waiting  car 
with  military  and  civic  escort,  the  strains  of  triumphal  music, 
the  accent  of  minute-guns,  for  their  last  journey.  Draped  in 
black,  the  train  moved  westward  through  the  night.  At  ev 
ery  station  and  along  the  line  were  reverent  throngs  of  mourn- 


GARFIELD.  413 

ers.  Upon  one  platform  I  recall  a  long  file  of  men,  the  mem 
bers  of  a  Grand  Army  post,  upon  their  knees  with  uncovered 
heads,  as  the  train  passed  by. 

During  the  night  the  blaze  of  bonfires  at  road  crossings 
disclosed  groups  of  watchers  in  cabin  doors  and  windows  and 
on  the  adjacent  hills. 

In  the  gray  twilight  of  morning  the  bells  of  Pittsburgh  tolled 
continuously  with  sullen  clangor  as  we  slowly  moved  through 
the  sombre  city. 

Arriving  at  Cleveland  about  noon,  the  casket  was  trans 
ferred  to  a  stately  pavilion  in  an  open  space  in  the  midst  of  the 
town,  where  it  remained  till  Monday,  illuminated  at  night  by 
the  blaze  of  electric  lights,  and  guarded  by  his  companions-in 
arms,  who  stood  like  sleepless  sentinels  at  the  outposts  of  death. 

The  pageant  on  the  day  of  the  burial  was  indescribable. 
The  cessation  of  business,  the  dense  blackness  of  the  festoons 
of  drapery,  the1  stillness  and  awe  of  the  spectators,  the  multi 
tudes  so  immense  that  they  became  impersonal  and  conveyed 
only  the  idea  of  numbers,  mass,  and  volume,  like  the  leaves  of 
a  forest  or  the  sands  of  the  sea ;  the  lofty  hearse  with  its  twelve 
led  horses  completely  caparisoned  in  black,  with  silver  fringes 
sweeping  the  ground ;  the  dirges  of  bands  and  bells,  all  contrib 
uted  to  a  spectacle  that  can  neither  be  described  nor  forgotten. 

But  as  if  the  malignant  fate  that  had  pursued  him  with 
such  unrelenting  and  inexorable  cruelty  from  the  day  of  his 
elevation  had  not  yet  exhausted  its  fury,  so  that  even  in  death 
he  was  to  be  denied  the  peaceful  honors  that  are  given  to  the 
humblest  who  die,  long  before  the  last  resting-place  by  the 
lake  was  reached,  a  violent  tempest  of  rain  and  wind  burst 
suddenly  from  the  sky,  before  whose  ungovernable  rage  the 
procession  dispersed  and  the  multitudes  vanished,  so  that  the 


414  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

closing  rites  were  hastily  solemnized  in  the  presence  of  a  few 
witnesses,  in  darkness,  gloom,  and  desolation. 

And  so  closed  the  tragedy  whose  incidents  for  eighty  days 
three  hundred  millions  of  the  human  race  had  watched  with 
sleepless  solicitude,  and  for  whose  stay  an  uninterrupted  appeal 
of  unavailing  prayers  had  besieged  the  throne  of  God ;  a  tragedy 
which  taught,  as  it  was  never  taught  before,  the  vanity  of  fame, 
the  emptiness  of  honor,  the  mutability  of  pride  and  ambition. 

The  day  before  his  death,  after  looking  for  a  while  in  silence 
upon  the  sea,  he  said  to  his  friend  and  classmate,  Colonel 
Rockwell:  "Do  you  think  my  name  will  have  a  place  in 
history?" 

"Yes,"  was  the  reply,  "a  grand  one;  but  a  grander  place 
in  the  hearts  of  the  people.  But  you  must  not  dwell  on  such 
thoughts.  You  have  a  great  work  yet  to  perform." 

After  a  brief  pause,  the  sufferer  whispered  in  accents  almost 
inaudible:  "No;  my  work  is  done." 

A  few  hours  later  the  mournful  prediction  was  fulfilled. 
He  exclaimed  suddenly :  ' '  Oh,  Swaim !  that  pain  1  that  pain ! " 
In  another  instant  his  eyes  closed,  and  Garfield  took  his  seat 
in  the  parliament  of  the  skies. 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY. 


I. 

In  each  individual  of  the  fifteen  hundred  millions  of  the 
human  race  there  is  an  indefinable  something  that  eludes  the 
photographer,  that  the  painter  cannot  capture,  nor  the  sculptor 
reproduce,  and  that  no  biographer  can  record. 

This  subtle,  evasive  element,  animula,  vagula,  blandula,  is 
the  Ego,  the  personality,  that  essence  and  quality  which  dif 
ferentiates  every  man  from  his  fellows  and  makes  him  what 
he  is. 

Of  this  being  there  is  no  portrait  nor  any  history.  It  exists 
only  in  the  minds  of  others,  as  the  beauty  of  the  landscape  is 
in  the  eye  of  the  beholder;  the  eloquence  of  the  oration,  the 
spell  of  the  song,  the  prosperity  of  the  jest,  in  the  ear  of  the 
hearer,  and  the  charm  of  the  woman  beloved  in  the  soul  of  her 
worshiper. 

The  mirror  cannot  tell  us  the  image  we  leave  in  the  con 
sciousness  of  others,  nor  can  we  communicate  to  them  the 
impression  they  make  upon  our  own. 

I  remember  the  first  time  I  saw  General  Grant — the  evening 
before  his  second  inauguration.  I  had  seen  innumerable  pict 
ures  of  him,  and  read  countless  sketches  of  his  dimensions, 
bearing,  features,  and  apparel,  so  that  I  had  his  clear  delinea 
tion  in  my  mind.  But  the  instant  I  held  his  hand,  looked 
into  his  eyes  and  heard  his  voice,  this  disappeared  like  a  dis- 

415 


416  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

solving  view  from  the  screen  of  a  cosmorama,  and  was  suc 
ceeded  by  another  which  is  imperishable,  but  which  art  can 
not  copy  nor  language  portray. 

The  secret  of  personal  popularity,  the  power  of  exciting 
irrational  and  vehement  devotion  to  its  object,  has  never  been 
detected.  If  it  is  not  possessed,  it  cannot  be  acquired.  It  is 
an  art  for  which  there  is  no  text-book  nor  any  teacher.  A  man 
may  well  enough  say  he  will  be  learned,  upright,  successful, 
respected,  a  politician,  or  a  diplomat,  but  not  that  he  will  be 
the  idol  of  the  people.  This  is  beyond  his  acumen.  The  gift 
is  rare.  Its  beneficiary  seldom  appears  oftener  than  once  in 
a  generation.  It  is  quite  independent  of  endowment  and  ca 
pacity.  Calhoun  was  a  greater  man  than  Clay,  and  Webster 
was  intellectually  far  the  superior  of  either;  but  Clay  aroused 
in  the  masses  of  his  party  a  passionate  fervor  of  adoration  that 
was  like  religious  fanaticism  in  its  intensity. 

When  he  was  defeated,  men  wept  with  emotions  of  irrep 
arable  personal  sorrow  and  inconsolable  bereavement.  His 
speeches  that  have  come  down  to  us  and  the  achievements  of 
his  career  offer  no  solution  of  the  mystery.  It  is  as  inexplic 
able  as  the  sway  of  Mary  Filton,  the  dark,  dwarfish  maid-of- 
honor,  whose  faithlessness  wrung  from  Shakespeare's  tortured 
spirit  the  One  Hundred  and  Twenty-ninth  Sonnet,  or  the  sur 
render  of  Antony  to  Cleopatra,  for  whom  the  infatuated  con 
queror  thought  the  world,  with  its  thrones  and  triumphs, 
well  lost 

As  in  the  case  of  Clay,  posterity  will  be  equally  at  a  loss  to 
comprehend  the  tremendous  sovereignty  and  dominion  of 
Blaine  over  the  masses  of  the  Republican  party,  and  his  con 
temporaries  in  every  party,  with  whom  he  came  in  personal 
touch  and  communication,  for  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life- 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  417 

There  were  giants  in  those  days,  warriors  and  statesmen, 
between  whom  and  Elaine  in  service,  capacity,  and  equipment, 
there  was  no  comparison.  Other  reputations  may  far  surpass 
his  in  the  annals  of  the  Macaulay  of  our  times,  but  in  the  power 
to  move  and  stir  and  thrill,  to  inspire  uncontrollable  enthusi 
asm,  the  name  of  Elaine,  like  that  of  Abou  Ben  Adhem,  will 
lead  all  the  rest.  Other  leaders  were  admired,  loved,  honored, 
revered;  respected;  but  the  sentiment  for  Elaine  was  delirium. 
The  mention  of  his  name  in  the  convention  was  the  signal 
for  a  cyclone.  Applause  was  a  paroxysm.  His  appearance 
in  a  campaign  aroused  frenzy  that  was  like  the  madness  of 
intoxication. 

In  1876  Elaine  was  in  his  perihelion.  Barring  the  three 
great  military  chieftains,  he  was  the  foremost  figure  in  the 
Republic.  His  orbit  had  hitherto  been  planetary  rather  than 
meteoric.  His  progress  upward  was  gradual  and  orderly. 
His  apprenticeship  in  the  Maine  Legislature  gave  him  advan 
tage  in  Congress,  where  he  took  his  seat  December  7,  1863. 
He  spoke  seldom,  and  did  not  at  first  impress  himself  very 
powerfully  upon  the  House.  He  was  studious,  ready,  and 
attentive,  and  in  his  second  term  came  into  prominence, 
largely  by  his  altercation  with  Conkling  in  the  case  of  Provost- 
Marshal  General  Fry,  a  quarrel  whose  consequences  cost  him 
the  Presidency,  and  ended  only  with  his  life. 

He  was  chosen  Speaker  the  day  of  Grant's  first  inaugura 
tion,  and  served  three  terms  with  great  distinction.  He  was 
an  ideal  presiding  officer.  He  had  the  parliamentary  instinct. 
His  acquaintance  with  rules,  practice,  and  precedents  of  pro 
cedure  was  accurate.  His  memory  of  names,  faces,  and  local 
ities  seemed  automatic.  His  mental  processes  were  exceed 
ingly  rapid  and  precise.  His  decisions  of  points  of  order  in 


4i 8  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

debate  were  usually  off-hand  and  very  seldom  reversed.  His 
facility  in  counting  a  rising  vote  was  phenomenal.  Holding 
the  head  of  the  gavel,  he  swept  the  circuit  of  the  House  with 
the  handle,  announcing  the  result  so  promptly  that  it  seemed 
like  a  feat  of  legerdemain.  He  explained  that  he  segregated 
the  members  into  blocks  of  ten. 

His  relations  with  the  House  seemed  intimate  and  per 
sonal,  rather  than  official,  and  he  regarded  himself  as  its  min 
ister,  and  not  its  master. 

The  Forty-fourth  Congress  was  Democratic,  and  March  3, 
1875,  Blaine  resumed  his  seat  as  Representative  of  the  Third 
District  of  Maine. 

In  January,  1876,  the  bill  for  general  amnesty  to  all  South 
erners  was  brought  forward,  and  Blaine  opposed  the  exten 
sion  to  Jefferson  Davis  upon  the  ground  that  as  Commander- 
in -Chief  of  the  Confederate  armies  he  was  directly  responsible 
for  the  horrors  and  atrocities  of  Anderson ville. 

The  debate  caused  intense  interest  and  excitement  North 
and  South,  and  through  the  efforts  of  Blaine  and  Garficld 
amnesty  was  defeated. 

Blaine  said :  "I  except  Jefferson  Davis  on  the  ground  that 
he  was  the  author,  knowingly,  deliberately,  guiltily,  and  will 
fully  of  the  gigantic  murders  and  crimes  at  Anderson  ville.  I 
have  taken  occasion  to  read  some  of  the  historic  cruelties  of 
the  world.  I  have  read  over  the  details  of  those  atrocious 
murders  of  the  Duke  of  Alva  in  the  Low  Countries,  which  are 
always  mentioned  with  a  thrill  of  horror  throughout  Christen 
dom.  I  have  read  the  details  of  the  massacre  of  Saint  Bar 
tholomew,  that  stands  out  in  history  as  one  of  the  atrocities 
beyond  imagination.  I  have  read  anew  the  horrors  untold 
and  unimaginable  of  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  And  I  here, 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  419 

before  God,  measuring  my  words,  knowing  their  full  extent 
and  import,  declare  that  neither  the  deeds  of  the  Duke  of  Alva 
in  the  Low  Countries,  nor  the  massacre  of  Saint  Bartholomew, 
nor  the  thumbscrews  and  engines  of  torture  of  the  Spanish 
Inquisition,  begin  to  compare  in  atrocity  with  the  hideous 
crimes  of  Anderson ville." 

The  Southern  Democracy  never  forgave  this  utterance. 

As  the  end  of  Grant's  second  term  drew  near  the  contest 
for  the  succession  became  animated. 

Conkling  was  the  Administration  candidate,  and  strangely 
enough,  as  it  seems  in  the  light  of  events,  he  was  the  favorite 
of  the  gamblers  and  book-makers,  and  had  "the  hurrah"  at 
Washington.  Those  best  informed  regarded  Morton  as  the 
strongest  candidate.  He  was  aggressively  radical,  and  relied 
largely  upon  the  support  of  the  South,  which  sent  delegates, 
but  cast  no  votes. 

After  the  Andersonville  debate,  Elaine  developed  phenom 
enal  strength  both  in  New  England  and  the  West.  Many 
States  hitherto  supposed  to  be  safe  for  other  candidates  trod 
on  each  other's  heels  in  their  eagerness  to  choose  Elaine  dele 
gations.  Early  in  April  the  managers  of  "the  machine"  saw 
with  rage  and  consternation  that  Elaine  would  start  with  more 
votes  than  Morton  and  Conkling  combined,  and  unless  the 
movement  in  his  favor  was  checked,  he  would  stampede  the 
convention. 

Back-firing  is  a  favorite. method  of  arresting  the  spread  of 
a  conflagration.  It  is  not  unknown  in  politics. 

Vague,  intangible  rumors  affecting  Elaine 's  personal  and  of 
ficial  integrity  were  set  afloat  at  Indianapolis  and  other  places 
in  the  West,  and  repeated  in  New  York.  It  was  alleged  in 
obscure  journals  catalogued  as  Republican  that  as  Speaker  of 


420  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  House  he  had  used  his  power  in  favor  of  certain  Western 
railroads,  from  which  he  had  received  vast  sums  in  money, 
stock,  and  bonds  as  compensation. 

It  was  not  difficult,  after  the  Jeff  Davis  episode,  to  induce 
a  Democratic  House  to  appoint  a  committee  to  investigate 
these  accusations ;  but  Elaine  for  the  time  baffled  the  conspir 
ators  by  a  personal  statement  on  the  floor  April  24,  1876. 

On  May  2d  a  resolution  was  introduced  to  investigate  an 
alleged  purchase  by  the  Union  Pacific  Railway,  at  a  price 
much  greater  than  their  actual  value,  of  certain  bonds  of  the 
Little  Rock  and  Fort  Smith  Railroad  Company,  of  which  it 
was  whispered  Elaine  was  the  owner. 

He  insisted  upon  prompt  and  immediate  examination  of 
the  charges,  but  his  enemies  were  in  no  hurry.  They  wanted 
the  black  cloud  of  distrust  and  suspicion  to  darken  the  splendor 
of  his  fame  and  cast  its  ominous  shadow  over  the  convention. 

It  was  an  epoch  of  sensations.  The  country  was  startled 
one  morning  by  the  story  that  Mulligan,  a  confidential  clerk 
of  Elaine's  Boston  broker,  had  arrived  in  Washington  with  a 
bundle  of  Elaine's  letters,  purloined  from  the  files,  showing 
his  relations  with  the  railroad  companies  and  conclusively 
establishing  his  guilt. 

Suddenly  the  announcement  was  made  that  Elaine,  after 
offering  to  Mulligan  a  place  in  the  foreign  service,  and  threat 
ening  to  commit  suicide,  had  obtained  possession  of  the  let 
ters  by  an  act  of  bad  faith,  and  that  they  would  not  appear  in 
evidence. 

The  whole  transaction  was  mysterious,  and  it  may  as  well 
be  said  here  as  elsewhere  that  its  effect  on  Elaine  was  distinctly 
injurious.  He  never  recovered  from  it.  It  left  a  stain,  vague 
and  faint,  but  indelible. 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  421 

The  correspondence,  under  the  most  charitable  interpreta 
tion,  betrayed  indiscretion,  if  no  more,  that  came  near  the 
frontier  of  culpability.  It  furnished  his  enemies  with  ammu 
nition  to  which  his  supporters  interposed  no  armor  save  silence. 

But  Elaine  was  fertile  in  resources  and  a  born  tragedian. 
Conscious  that  it  would  be  fatal  to  rest  under  the  imputation 
that  he  had  secured  the  letters  in  order  to  stifle  damaging  dis 
closures,  he  decided  on  a  coup  de  theatre,  rose  Monday  morning, 
June  5th  to  a  question  of  privilege,  and  hurled  defiance  at  his 
foes. 

He  stood  on  a  narrow  neck  of  land. 

The  convention  at  Cincinnati  was  to  assemble  one  week 
from  the  following  Wednesday.  His  friends  were  perturbed 
and  restless.  His  rivals  sneered.  His  enemies  were  noisily 
exultant.  The  Democratic  majority  was  eager  to  convict. 
The  stake  was  enormous.  The  situation  was  dramatic.  He 
had  the  Nation  for  his  audience.  When  he  began,  there  was 
a  silence  deep  as  death,  and  the  boldest  held  his  breath  for  a 
while. 

Reciting  the  resolution,  he  briefly  reviewed  its  objects  and 
purposes  and  the  methods  of  his  accusers.  He  denied  the  power 
of  the  House  to  compel  the  production  of  his  private  corre 
spondence,  and  particularly  the  letters  purloined  by  Mulligan. 

He  affirmed  his  readiness  for  any  extremity  of  contest  in 
defense  of  his  sacred  right,  and  then  added,  with  immense 
emphasis:  "And  while  I  am  so,  I  am  not  afraid  to  show  the 
letters.  Thank  God  Almighty,  I  am  not  ashamed  to  show 
them!  There  they  are" — holding  a  packet  at  arm's  length 
above  his  head.  "There  is  the  very  original  package.  And 
with  some  sense  of  humiliation,  with  a  mortification  I  do  not 
attempt  to  conceal,  with  a  sense  of  the  outrage  which  I  think 


422  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

any  man  in  my  position  would  feel,  I  invite  the  confidence  of 
forty-four  millions  of  my  countrymen  while  I  read  those  letters 
from  this  desk." 

They  were  not  pleasant  reading,  but  Elaine  had  a  thunder- 
boll  in  reserve.  At  the  close,  turning  to  the  chairman  of  the 
committee  having  the  investigation  in  charge,  after  a  prelim 
inary  colloquy,  Elaine  said : 

"I  tell  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky  now,  and  I  am  pre 
pared  to  state  to  this  House,  that  at  eight  o  'clock  last  Thurs 
day  morning,  or  thereabouts,  the  gentleman  from  Kentucky 
received  and  receipted  for  a  message  addressed  to  him  from 
Josiah  Caldwell,  in  London,  completely  and  absolutely  exon 
erating  me  from  these  accusations,  and  that  he  has  sup 
pressed  it!" 

This  put  Proctor  Knott  in  a  hole.  He  could  not  deny  that 
he  had  received  a  message,  because  he  had  incautiously  shown 
it  to  a  Democratic  friend,  who  in  some  way  conveyed  the 
information  to  Elaine,  and  thus  gave  him  the  opportunity  of 
turning  the  tables  upon  his  adversaries  by  showing  that  theif 
object  was  not  justice,  but  political  persecution. 

Knott  claimed  that  this  pretended  cable  was  bogus,  a  fake 
made  up  this  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  palmed  off  on  the 
committee  for  this  specific  use. 

There  was  room  for  suspicion,  but  Elaine  won.  It  was  an 
unprecedented  forensic  triumph,  although  far  enough  from 
a  moral  vindication.  The  people  like  nerve,  sand,  and  intre 
pidity,  and  attach  small  importance  to  political  indictments. 
Their  sympathies  go  out  to  the  man  who  fights  against  desper 
ate  odds  and  succeeds. 

There  have  been  many  turbulent  and  disorderly  episodes 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  but  no  one  who  witnessed 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  423 

this  gladiatorial  combat  will  ever  forget  the  uproar,  the  un 
controllable  frenzy  and  tumultuous  thunder  of  that  historic 
day.  Every  one  seemed  to  have  eaten  of  the  insane  root  that 
takes  the  reason  prisoner.  A  yelling  mob  of  trespassers  broke 
past  the  guards  and  turned  the  floor  into  a  bedlam.  The 
crowded  galleries  howled  with  derision  at  the  puny  efforts  of 
the  Chair  to  enforce  the  rules  and  preserve  order.  It  would 
have  been  as  easy  for  Nero  to  keep  silence  in  the  Coliseum 
when  the  Christians  were  fed  to  the  lions. 

The  Sunday  morning  in  Washington  preceding  the  Cincin 
nati  convention  was  suffocatingly  still,  .hot,  and  breathless. 

I  was  sitting  by  the  window  in  my  apartments  at  1411  H 
Street  when  Elaine,  with  his  wife  and  Miss  Dodge  ("Gail  Ham 
ilton"),  walked  slowly  eastward  on  their  way  to  the  Congre 
gational  Church  at  the  corner  of  Tenth  and  G  Streets.  He 
was  a  little  in  advance  of  the  'ladies,  and  was  sunken,  ap 
parently,  in  the  profoundest  reverie.  He  appeared  heavily 
dressed  for  the  oppressive  day,  and  one  hand  was  thrust  in  the 
breast  of  his  closely  buttoned  frock  coat. 

His  head  hung  heavily  forward,  and  his  gaze  seemed  bent 
vacantly  on  the  ground  at  his  feet.  His  countenance  had  a 
deadly  pallor,  and  I  was  hardly  surprised  to  hear  a  few  moments 
afterward  that  he  had  fallen  unconscious  in  the  vestibule 
while  entering  the  church,  and  had  been  taken  home  apparently 
dying. 

Latej  in  the  day  I  went  around  to  his  house.  He  was  lying 
on  a  bed,  partly  undressed,  and  still  unconscious.  His  eyes 
were  fixed,  and  he  breathed  stertorously  at  laborious  intervals. 
I  never  expected  to  see  him  alive  again. 

The  following  Friday  evening,  going  down  Fourteenth 
Street  after  an  early  dinner  with  a  friend  on  Highland  Ter- 


424  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

race,  I  saw  an  immense  throng  reading  the  bulletins  before 
the  telegraph  office  on  the  Avenue.  The  announcement  of 
Wheeler's  nomination  as  Vice- President  had  just  been  chalked 
on  the  board,  and  was  received  with  silence  that  could  be  felt. 

After  a  contest  between  such  giants  as  Elaine,  Morton, 
Conkling,  and  Bristow,  the  outcome  of  Hayes  and  Wheeler 
seemed  disrespectful,  and  like  an  affront,  as  when  the  star  per 
formers  in  an  opera  are  replaced  by  understudies,  and  the 
audience  clamor  around  the  box-office  and  want  their  money 
back.  It  was  a  most  lame  and  impotent  conclusion.  The 
political  mountain  had  been  in  labor  and  brought  forth  two 
mice. 

Suddenly  the  crowd  turned  simultaneously  eastward  with 
eager  gestures.  The  air  was  dense  with  hats.  Convulsive, 
volcanic  cries  and  shoutings  broke  out,  exulting  and  sympa 
thetic,  but  with  a  tone  of  vengeance  and  rage  penetrating  the 
uproar,  like  the  savage  acclamation  which  welcomes  the  victim 
of  injustice  escaping  from  cruel  oppressors. 

Looking  for  the  cynosure  of  these  neighboring  eyes,  I  saw 
on  the  back  seat  of  an  open  barouche,  with  Secretary  Fish  by 
his  side,  slowly  driving  up  the  Avenue,  Blaine,  bareheaded, 
bowing  his  acknowledgments  to  the  salutations  of  the  multitude 
that  dispersed  as  the  carriage  turned  up  Fifteenth  Street  and 
disappeared.  It  was  like  one  risen  from  the  dead. 

This  sunstroke,  or  physical  collapse,  whatever  it  was,  un 
questionably  had  a  depressing  effect  upon  Elaine's  prospects 
at  Cincinnati.  His  rivals  industriously  spread  the  report  that 
he  was  stricken  with  apoplexy,  and  even  if  the  termination 
were  not  fatal,  his  bodily  and  mental  faculties  would  be  per 
manently  impaired. 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  425 

Robust  health,  capacity  to  endure  strain,  tough  fibre  and 
a  placid  temperament  are  indispensable  requisites  for  a  Pres 
idential  candidate.  The  White  House  is  no  place  for  a  vale 
tudinarian,  a  dyspeptic,  or  a  nervous  invalid.  The  importu 
nate  selfishness  of  place-hunters,  the  inconsiderate  thought 
lessness  of  village  idols  who  wish  to  pay  their  respects,  of  vis 
itors  who  desire  to  shake  hands,  added  to  the  legitimate  de 
mands  of  senators,  representatives,  and  officials,  together  with 
the  requirements  of  public  duties,  would  drive  a  weakling  to 
Saint  Elizabeth's  or  the  grave.  Like  a  lawyer,  however  bad 
his  conscience  may  be,  the  President  must  have  a  good 
stomach. 

His  friends  spared  no  effort  to  counteract  this  unforeseen 
calamity.  And  their  solicitude  was  partially  allayed  by  this 
telegram,  which  he  sent  from  his  sick-chamber: 

"  I  am  entirely  convalescent.  Suffering  only  from  physical  weakness. 
Impress  upon  my  friends  the  great  depth  of  gratitude  I  feel  for  the  unpar 
alleled  steadfastness  with  which  they  have  adhered  to  me  in  my  hour 
of  trial." 

The  convention  met  Wednesday,  June  i4th.  The  next  day 
the  roll  of  States  was  called  alphabetically  for  nominations. 

Connecticut  presented  Marshall  Jewell,  a  majolica  states 
man  in  pumps  and  ruffles,  with  a  porcelain  smile,  whom  Grant 
Tiad  summarily  dismissed  from  his  Cabinet  for  disloyalty  to 
his  chief. 

Richard  W.  Thompson — born  the  same  year  as  Lincoln, 
and  a  Whig  member  of  Congress  during  the  Presidency  of 
John  Tyler,  the  apostate — named  Morton,  of  Indiana,  the 
Danton  of  Republicanism;  a  sombre  giant,  paralyzed  below 
his  hips,  whose  physical  disability  prevented  the  opponents 
of  Elaine  from  uniting  on  him  as  their  candidate. 


426  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Kentucky  nominated  Bristow,  who  had  secretly  conspired 
with  the  enemies  of  Grant,  while  Secretary  of  the  Treasury 
under  him,  and  became,  therefore,  the  logical  representative 
of  the  Superior  Persons  who  advocate  " sweetness  and  light"  in 
politics. 

Robert  G.  Ingersoll,  then  of  Illinois,  presented  Elaine  as 
the  "Plumed  Knight,"  a  ridiculous  sobriquet,  suggestive  of  the 
circus  and  the  theatre,  in  a  speech  otherwise  of  remarkable 
power,  which  first  gave  the  great  agnostic  national  renown. 
Woodford,  of  New  York,  nominated  Conkling,  whose  desire 
for  revenge  knew  no  satiety. 

Ohio  named  Hayes,  on  whom  the  opponents  of  Elaine 
united  on  the  seventh  ballot;  and  Pennsylvania  nominated 
Hartranft  as  a  "favorite  son/'  to  enable  Cameron  to  throw 
the  delegation  to  Bristow  or  Hayes,  though  Elaine  received 
30  of  the  58  at  the  end. 

Friday  the  convention  proceeded  to  vote.  Six  ballots 
were  taken,  378  being  necessary  for  choice.  Elaine  led  in 
each,  his  tally  being  285,  296,  293,  292,  286,  308.  In  the  sixth 
ballot  Morton  and  Conkling  were  out.  It  was  evident  the  sev 
enth  ballot  would  be  decisive  by  a  combination  either  on  Bris 
tow  or  Hayes. 

Elaine  was  sitting  in  the  library  of  his  house  on  Fifteenth 
Street  in  Washington  at  this  hour.  A  telegraph  instrument 
was  on  the  table,  with  his  secretary  at  the  key.  He  was  just 
recovering  from  the  stroke  that  prostrated  him  Sunday  morn 
ing.  As  the  details  of  the  seventh  ballot  came  in,  State  after 
State,  the  tension  was  extreme.  Elaine  alone  seemed  self- 
possessed  and  unmoved. 

Arkansas  transferred  her  vote  from  Morton  to  Elaine. 
The  Morton  votes  from  Florida  were  also  given  to  him.  The 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY  427 

chances  all  seemed  in  Elaine's  favor  till  Indiana  was  reached, 
when  the  chairman  of  the  delegation  withdrew  the  name  of 
Morton  and  cast  25  votes  for  Hayes  and  5  for  Bristow. 
When  Kentucky  was  called,  Harlan  withdrew  the  name  of 
Bristow  and  cast  27  votes  for  Hayes,  who  was  nominated,  re 
ceiving  384,  to  351  for  Blaine. 

Elaine  made  one  suppressive  exclamation  of  surprise,  and 
immediately  wrote  this  dispatch  to  Governor  Hayes: 

"I  offer  you  my  sincerest  congratulations  on  your  nomination.  It  will 
be  my  highest  pleasure  as  well  as  my  first  political  duty  to  do  the  utmost 
in  my  power  to  promote  your  election  The  earliest  moments  of  my 
returning  and  confirmed  health  will  be  devoted  to  securing  you  as  large 
a  vote  in  Maine  as  she  would  have  given  for  myself." 

He  spoke  in  twelve  States.  His  reception  was  that  of  a 
victor,  but  he  showed  great  fatigue,  and  his  health  was  unequal 
to  the  strain. 

In  fact,  Blaine  was  a  hypochondriac.  His  life  was  a  hand- 
to-hand  contest  with  imaginary  diseases,  which  is  itself  a  dis 
ease,  due,  perhaps,  to  some  hereditary  or  pre-natal  lesion,  and 
hence  obscure  and  fatal.  In  his  speaking  tours  he  soon  grew 
hoarse  and  husky,  and  became  depressed. 

His  colleague,  Hannibal  Hamlin,  the  former  Vice- President, 
told  me  there  had  never  been  a  time  since  he  had  been 
acquainted  with  Blaine  when,  if  three  friends  were  to  meet 
him  one  after  the  other  in  the  morning,  on  his  way  down 
town,  and  greet  him  successively  with  the  exclamation,  "Why! 
what  is  the  matter?  How  ill  you  look!"  that,  though  feeling 
perfectly  well  when  he  started,  he  would  not  immediately 
return  home,  go  to  bed,  and  send  for  the  doctor.  This  was 
no  doubt  humorous  exaggeration,  but  it  illustrated  his  mental 
attitude  toward  himself,  which  was  one  of  brooding  and  fore 
boding  introspection. 


428  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

As  early  as  1867  he  visited  Europe,  mainly  to  consult  an 
eminent  French  physician  at  Paris  about  some  symptoms  that 
gave  him  alarm;  but,  after  examination,  the  doctor  laughed 
at  him  and  gave  him  a  prescription,  at  which  every  one  else 
laughed  when  Elaine  told  the  story. 

Soon  after  the  convention  (July  19,  1876),  Elaine  was  ap 
pointed  United  States  senator  -vice  Morrill,  who  became  Sec 
retary  of  the  Treasury  under  Grant.  When  the  Legislature 
met,  he  was  elected  for  the  unexpired  term,  and  for  the  full 
term  ending  March  4,  1883. 

He  was  forty-six,  and  his  powers  were  at  their  meridian. 
He  was  above  the  middle  height,  of  large  frame  and  heavy 
proportions,  but  extremely  agile  and  alert  in  his  carriage, 
with  an  erect  and  martial  bearing.  The  deadly  pallor  of  his 
complexion  was  framed  in  iron-gray  hair  and  beard,  always 
carefully  trimmed.  His  large  mouth  was  set  diagonally  from 
left  to  right.  His  nose  was  heavy,  bulbous,  and  pendulous; 
his  eyes  mirthful  and  inquisitive,  with  heavy  lids  drooping 
exteriorly,  and  bulging  sacs  beneath. 

His  attire  was  always  costly  and  in  the  mode,  but  not 
expressed  in  fancy.  His  voice,  though  neither  rich  nor  well- 
modulated,  had  resonance  and  penetration.  His  manners  were 
affable,  familiar,  and  cordial,  with  dignified  gravity  enough  on 
occasion.  In  conversation  he  was  vivacious  and  good-humored 
rather  than  witty,  with  great  fondness  for  clean  jokes,  apt  anec 
dotes,  odd  incidents  and  reminiscences,  and  pertinent  illustra 
tions.  He  was  inclined  to  be  noisy  and  boisterous  if  time 
served,  with  much  laughter.  He  liked  to  "jolly"  his  intimates, 
but  was  domestic  rather  than  convivial  in  his  habits. 

His  chief  mistakes  came  from  desire  for  money,  which  he 
wanted  not  for  himself,  but  for  the  power  it  brings.  He  was 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  429 

liberal  in  his  way  of  life,  but  not  ostentatious,  and  his  table 
was  always  spread  for  hospitality. 

He  studied  the  arts  of  the  politician  assiduously :  the  recog 
nition  of  unimportant  men  seldom  seen,  small  personal  atten 
tions  to  rustics;  and  was  a  most  inveterate  advertiser. 

He  had  no  fear  of  traditions,  and  took  an  active  part  in 
the  business  of  the  Senate  from  the  first.  He  had  a  great 
nose  for  majorities,  was  a  good  guesser,  and  instinctively  took 
the  popular  side  of  open  questions. 

The  Senate  has  always  been  controlled  by  lawyers,  who 
are  the  aristocratic  class  in  the  United  States,  and  Elaine  was 
at  a  disadvantage  because  he  did  not  belong  to  the  profession. 
The  law  lords  were  disposed  to  disparage  and  flout  him,  but 
he  was  disrespectful  to  the  verge  of  irreverence. 

"Does  the  Senator  from  Maine  think  I  am  an  id  jit  [idiot]?" 
roared  Thurman,  in  reply  to  an  interrogatory  Elaine  put  to 
him  one  day  in  the  Pacific  Railroad  debate. 

"Well,"  bellowed  Elaine,  "that  depends  entirely  on  the 
answer  you  make  to  my  question."  Which  gave  "the  merry 
ha-ha"  to  the  old  Roman. 

He  spoke  at  length  on  silver,  Chinese  exclusion,  the  Elec 
toral  Commission,  protection  and  the  American  marine,  and 
troops  at  the  polls. 

This  paragraph  is  a  good  illustration  of  his  methods  in 
debate.  Replying  to  the  charge  that  soldiers  were  used  to 
intimidate  Southern  Democratic  voters,  he  said: 

"The  entire  South  had  1,155  soldiers  to  overrun,  oppress, 
and  destroy  the  liberties  of  15,000,000  people.  In  the  Southern 
States  there  are  1,203  counties.  If  you  distribute  the  soldiers, 
there  is  not  quite  one  for  each  county.  If  you  distribute  them 
territorially,  there  is  one  for  every  700  square  miles  of  territory. 


43Q  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

So  that  if  you  make  a  territorial  distribution,  I  would  remind 
the  honorable  Senator  from  Delaware,  if  I  saw  him  in  his  seat, 
that  the  quota  for  his  State  would  be  three :  '  One  ragged  ser 
geant  and  two  abreast,'  as  the  old  song  has  it,  is  the  force  ready 
to  destroy  the  liberties  of  Delaware." 

His  speeches  were  like  reading  editorials  rather  than  ora 
tions.  He  spoke  with  extreme  rapidity  and  violent  gestures, 
but  never  slopped  over.  He  was  brilliant  and  interesting, 
but  never  sank  into  eloquence,  as  that  word  goes. 

Even  his  eulogy  on  Garfield,  perhaps  his  most  ambitious 
effort,  reads  like  an  essay  rather  than  a  panegyric. 

Without  ascribing  to  Elaine  the  absence  of  convictions,  it 
is  not  unjust  to  catalogue  him  as  an  opportunist.  He  was  not 
so  much  a  student  as  a  specialist. 

He  wrote  little  and  read  less,  but  devoured  newspapers 
omnivorously.  His  intellectual  efforts  were  what  the  doctors 
call  pro  re  nata. 

But  in  running  debate,  which  is  like  a  duel  with  swords, 
Blaine  was  the  Cyrano  de  Bergerac  of  his  generation.  Imper 
turbable,  versatile,  confident,  never  disconcerted,  at  the  last 
line  he  hit. 


ii. 

Blaine  and  I  were  next-door  neighbors  in  the  Senate,  my 
desk  being  at  his  left,  then  Hamlin,  and  then  Conkling  in  the 
last  seat  of  the  middle  row  east  of  the  gangway. 

Elaine's  conduct  in  the  preliminary  movements  of  the 
campaign  of  1880  was  mysterious  and  inexplicable.  He  re 
mained  the  popular  favorite,  but  his  enemies  were,  if  possi- 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  431 

ble,  more  malignant  and  relentless  than  at   any  previous  time 
in  his  career. 

Morton,  his  great  competitor  in  the  West  in  1876,  was  dead; 
but  Conkling,  Sherman,  Logan,  Cameron,  Edmunds,  and  others, 
while  they  had  no  love  for  one  another,  were  still  united  by 
the  common  bond  of  hatred  for  Blaine.  He  was  unmistakably 
the  enthusiastic  choice  of  nine  out  of  ten  Republicans,  black 
and  white,  North  and  South;  but  the  knowledge  of  his  popu 
larity  only  whetted  the  rage  of  his  foes,  and  gave  edge  to  their 
determination  to  spare  nothing,  foul  or  fair,  foi  his  destruction. 

These  astute  political  veterans  saw  clearly  that  a  crisis  had 
•come  in  which  the  ordinary  regulation  tactics  would  fail. 
Blaine,  having  no  rival  in  the  affections  of  his  party,  it  be 
came  necessary,  therefore,  to  discover  or  invent  a  competitor. 
It  was  not  easy. 

Various  "favorite  sons"  were  brought  forward,  only  to  be 
received  with  indifference,  disdain,  or  derision.  General  Sher 
man  was  approached,  but  he  refused  peremptorily,  almost  con 
temptuously,  to  permit  his  name  to  be  used. 

There  was  one  gigantic  figure  which  had  grown  still  more 
colossal  in  the  interim  since  the  decree  of  the  Electoral  Com 
mission.  General  Grant's  last  term  had  been  prolific  in  scan 
dal  that  had  nearly  wrecked  his  party,  but  the  people  saw 
that  rogues  and  knaves  had  imposed  on  the  simplicity  and 
inexperience  of  a  generous  nature,  and  the  memory  of  his 
errors  was  obliterated  by  gratitude  for  the  vast  services  he  had 
rendered  the  Republic. 

He  was  at  this  time  in  the  Orient  on  his  tour  around  the 
world,  and  as  the  nations  through  which  he  traveled  rose  up 
and  stood  uncovered  while  he  passed  by,  the  American  people 
obtained  a  new  conception  of  the  grandeur  of  his  achievements 


432  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

and  the  immortality  of  his  fame.     It  seemed  not  so  much  the 
judgment  of  contemporaries  as  the  verdict  of  posterity. 

But  there  was  no  popular  desire  to  give  him  a  third  term. 
No  emergency  existed  which  rendered  even  his  great  qualities 
indispensable.  The  traditions  and  precedents  of  our  history 
were  against  it.  It  was  an  innovation  that  verged  on  revolu 
tion  ;  and  yet,  if  Grant  wanted  it,  many  were  willing  that  he 
should  have  it  in  further  acknowledgment  of  the  obligation 
that  could  never  be  fully  acquitted. 

Whether  General  Grant  was  himself  ambitious  for  another 
term,  and  aware  of  the  movement  in  his  favor,  I  never  knew. 
My  belief  is  that  the  opponents  of  Elaine,  looking  over  the 
field,  concluded  that  Grant  was  the  only  name  with  which 
they  could  conjure,  and  put  him  forward  without  his  knowl 
edge,  trusting  to  the  agitation  and  excitement  of  his  return  to 
the  United  States  to  make  it  appear  that  he  was  the  popular 
choice  and  overwhelm  all  opposition. 

The  New  York  papers,  one  day  while  the  contest  was 
raging,  contained  the  account  of  Grant's  reception  in  Siam. 
Conkling  read  to  me  with  much  dramatic  effect  the  General's 
reply  to  the  King,  and  commented  upon  Grant's  remarkable 
intellectual  development  in  later  years. 

As  the  occasion  seemed  opportune,  I  asked  him  whether 
Grant  knew  anything  about  the  movement  going  on  to  put 
him  in  nomination  for  a  third  term.  Conkling  replied  with 
much  emphasis  that  he  had  never  had  a  word  of  conversation 
or  a  line  of  correspondence  with  him  on  the  subject,  and  that 
the  movement,  so  far  as  he  knew,  was  a  spontaneous  demand 
of  the  people.  Logan  said  substantially  the  same  thing. 

But  notwithstanding  this  popular  demand,  Cameron,  who 
was  in  absolute  control  of  the  Republican  "machine"  in  Penn- 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  433 

sylvania,  had  a  convention  called  many  weeks  earlier  than 
customary,  and  secured  the  election  of  a  Grant  delegation, 
though  the  Republicans  of  that  State  were  practically  solid  for 
Elaine. 

Logan  did  the  same  in  Illinois,  another  Elaine  State,  in 
May.  In  the  meantime,  Sherman,  who  was  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  secured  Ohio,  and  by  his  agents  picked  up  many 
negro  delegates  from  the  Southern  States;  while  Edmunds, 
in  New  England,  got  Vermont  and  Massachusetts. 

I  asked  Elaine  how  he  expected  to  win  while  his  enemies 
were  packing  conventions  and  setting  up  hostile  delegations 
in  his  territory.  He  did  not  appear  to  be  disturbed,  and 
thought  the  people  would  take  care  of  the  convention  at  last. 

The  day  of  the  nomination  (Tuesday,  June  8th)  the  Sen 
ate  met  at  eleven,  and  considered  the  Calendar  and  the  Sun 
dry  Civil  Appropriation  Bill,  but  the  proceedings  were  languid 
and  perfunctory. 

Elaine  took  part  in  the  debate  occasionally,  but  betrayed 
no  agitation.  The  bulletins  were  brought  into  the  chamber 
every  few  minutes,  in  duplicate,  one  for  the  Vice-President 
and  the  other  for  Elaine.  To  the  groups  that  gathered  around 
he  exhibited  no  concern.  He  strolled  in  the  intervals  about 
the  chamber  and  in  and  out  of  the  corridors,  chatting  freely 
about  the  incidents  of  the  convention  brought  over  the  wire. 

Conkling's  "Appomattox  and  its  famous  apple-tree,"  and 
his  quotation  from  Raleigh,  "The  shallows  murmur,  but  the 
deeps  are  dumb,"  were  much  approved. 

When  the  details  of  the  thirty-fifth  ballot  were  brought  to 
his  desk,  between  two  and  three  p.  M.,  he  studied  them  atten 
tively  a  moment,  and  then  said :  ' '  Garfield  will  be  nominated 
on  the  next  ballot." 


434  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

About  four  o'clock  the  announcement  of  Garfield's  nomi 
nation  came.  Elaine  showed  no  emotion,  and  after  a  brief 
silence,  said  to  me:  "I  did  not  expect  the  nomination.  The 
combination  was  too  strong  for  my  friends  to  overcome.  But 
there  is  one  thing  I  have  done." 

"What  is  that?"  I  inquired. 

He  answered:  "I  have  put  an  end  forever  to  the  third- 
term  idea  in  this  country." 

*  Then  he  took  part  in  the  discussion  of  an  item  in  the  Appro 
priation  Bill  concerning  the  census  in  Rhode  Island.  Sen 
ator  Beck,  of  Kentucky,  good-naturedly  twitted  him  with  his 
defeat,  which  he  thought  had  thrown  him  into  ill  humor;  but 
Elaine  took  no  notice  of  the  gibe,  and  made  no  sign. 

Although  he  accepted  Garfield's  offer  of  the  place  in  a 
characteristically  gushing  and  indiscreet  letter  of  December 
20,  1880,  Elaine  was  in  doubt,  or  to  his  intimates  professed  to 
be,  about  the  policy  of  entering  the  Cabinet  as  Secretary  of 
State.  The  Senate  was  congenial  to  him,  and  he  felt  that  his 
incumbency  was  for  life  if  he  so  desired. 

Great  as  were  the  prerogatives  of  the  premiership,  it  was 
a  subordinate  position,  whose  term  must  be  brief  and  might 
be  uncertain.  He  seemed  to  halt  and  hesitate  to  the  end. 
Just  before  leaving  the  Senate  Chamber  for  the  last  time,  he 
looked  around  on  the  familial  scene  and  the  familiar  faces 
with  an  aspect  of  pathetic  regret.  "Well,"  he  said,  "good-bye; 
I  am  going ;  but  I  have  arranged  so  that  I  can  come  back  here 
whenever  I  want  to." 

Elaine's  evil  genius  seemed  for  the  moment  to  be  placated. 
Though  he  had  twice  failed  in  his  efforts  to  reach  the  Presi 
dency,  he  had  riches,  honor,  and  power. 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  435 

He  was  still  young,  as  years  count  in  great  careers.  Af 
ter  two  terms  in  Garfield's  Cabinet,  which  he  anticipated,  he 
might  reasonably  reckon  on  the  succession,  and  he  would 
then  be  but  fifty-eight.  So,  facing  eastward  on  Dupont  Circle, 
he  built  a  noble  place,  which  was  to  be  the  scene  of  his 
stately  triumphs,  his  diplomatic  functions,  and  his  political 
hospitalities. 

But  Fate's  truce  was  brief  and  hollow.  Destiny,  the  mighty 
magician.,  sinister  and  sardonic,  touched  the  trigger  of  the 
assassin's  pistol,  and  throne,  crown,  and  sceptre  vanished  as 
in  the  vision  of  Macbeth  on  the  blasted  heath. 

The  nomination  of  Arthur  was  a  sop  to  the  forces  led  by 
Conkling  to  salve  their  humiliation  at  the  defeat  of  Grant. 
It  was  a  placebo  to  New  York  and  the  stalwarts.  Even  in  "the 
stuff  that  dreams  are  made  of,"  there  was  no  thought  that  he 
would  be  President.  But,  by  the  legerdemain  of  doom,  Guit- 
eau  reinstated  the  vanquished.  Blaine  ceased  to  be  an  actor 
in  the  drama,  and  became  a  spectator  again. 

The  accession  of  Arthur  gave  that  urbane  and  imperturb 
able  politician  an  opportunity  to  which  he  was  not  equal. 
He  was  meshed  in  complications  he  could  not  unravel. 

He  trod  the  paths  of  his  feet  with  marvelous  circumspec 
tion,  but  the  labyrinth  was  too  intricate,  and  he  lost  the  clue. 
His  personal  bearing  was  princely  and  incomparable.  His 
presence  was  majestic,  and  his  manners  were  so  engaging  that 
no  one  left  him  after  even  the  briefest  interview  without  a 
sentiment  of  personal  regard. 

Transferred  suddenly  from  the  arena  of  municipal  poli 
tics,  where  he  was  a  most  successful  manager,  he  was  brought 
face  to  face  with  an  immense  exigency  to  which  parochial 


436  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

maxims  were  not  applicable.  He  was  not  familiar  with  the 
strange  stories  of  the  death  of  kings. 

His  motives  were  high,  but  he  did  not  discern  that  the 
factions  he  sought  to  unite  were  irreconcilable.  As  the  direct 
beneficiary  of  the  heinous  crime  of  an  assassin,  he  was  to  some 
an  object  of  suspicion,  to  others,  of  aversion. 

Garfield's  Cabinet  was  an  incongruous  mosaic,  hastily 
thrown  together,  incapable  of  cohesion,  and  certain  to  dis 
integrate.  Arthur  could  not  peremptorily  remove  Garfield's 
ministers  without  arousing  resentment ;  but  their  relations  soon 
became  so  strained  that  after  a  few  weeks,  to  relieve  the  Pres 
ident  from  further  embarrassment,  they  resigned. 

In  filling  their  places  Arthur  exhibited  singular  infirmity. 
Elaine  was  succeeded  by  the  mild  and  inoffensive  Freling- 
huysen.  Lincoln,  in  loco  parentis,  was  not  disturbed.  Alli 
son,  of  Iowa,  had  declined  two  portfolios  in  Garfield's  Cabinet, 
preferring  to  remain  in  the  Senate,  but,  to  save  the  honors  for 
his  constituency,  persuaded  his  colleague,  Governor  Kirkwood, 
to  take  the  position  of  Secretary  of  the  Interior.  He  and  Naval 
Secretary  Hunt  remained  a  little  longer  than  their  associates, 
but  were  followed  in  April  by  Teller,  of  Colorado,  and  Chan 
dler,  of  New  Hampshire. 

James,  Postmaster-General,  a  representative  of  the  "bet 
ter  element"  in  New  York,  was  succeeded  by  the  amiable  but 
obsolete  Howe,  of  Wisconsin,  who  died  two  years  later,  and 
was  followed  by  Gresham  and  Frank  Hatton  before  the  term 
ended.  To  the  office  of  Attorney-General  came  Benjamin  H. 
Brewster,  of  Philadelphia,  the  frightful  distortion  and  disfig 
urement  of  whose  features  were  forgotten  in  the  grace  of  his 
manners  and  the  charm  of  his  conversation. 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  437 

In  the  choice  of  these  successors,  had  Arthur,  while  exas 
perating  Garfield's  friends,  propitiated  Conkling,  his  course 
would  have  been*  explicable;  but  he  alienated  both.  The 
defeat  of  Judge  Folger,  of  New  York  (who  succeeded  Windom 
in  the  Treasury),  as  the  Republican  candidate  for  Governor 
of  that  State  three. years  afterward,  by  Grover  Cleveland,  by 
200,000  majority,  was  the  Cossack's  answer. 

There  was  a  Washington's  birthday  luncheon  February  22, 
1884,  at  General  McKee  Dunn's,  Lanier  Place,  Washington, 
just  east  of  Capitol  Park,  at  which  the  most  amusing  incident 
was  the  very  obvious  chagrin  of  a  rural  statesman  who  ap 
peared  in  evening  dress  among  a  throng  arrayed  in  morning 
costume. 

Elaine  was  one  of  the  guests.  I  had  not  met  him  before 
during  the  winter.  I  was  busy  in  the  Senate,  and  he  was 
occupied  with  his  "Twenty  Years  in  Congress,"  and  with 
social  afternoon  recreations. 

I  asked  him  how  his  Presidential  canvass  was  going  on. 

He  said  he  had  received  above  seven  thousand  letters  from 
correspondents  in  every  State,  asking  his  wishes  and  plans 
and  proffering  help,  to  no  one  of  which  had  he  replied. 

He  seemed  to  regard  the  outlook  for  Republican  success  as 
exceedingly  dubious  on  account  of  the  factions  in  New  York 
and  Ohio  and  the  record  of  the  party  in  Congress.  He  said 
he  neither  desired *nor  expected  the. nomination,  adding,  how 
ever,  with  great  emphasis  and  intensity:  "But  I  don't  intend 
that  man  in  the  White  House  shall  have  it!" 

June  6,  1884,  on  the  fourth  ballot  and  the  fourth  day  of 
the  convention  at  Chicago,  Elaine  was  nominated  by  541,  to 
207  for  Arthur,  and  41  for  Edmunds. 


438  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

The  campaign  that  followed  was  the  most  feculent  and 
loathsome  in  our  records.  It  \vas  a  carnival  of  revolting 
filth  and  indecent  defamation :  the  cloaca  maxima  of  American 
politics. 

To  his  extraordinary  power  of  attracting  friends,  Elaine 
added  an  inexhaustible  capacity  for  making  enemies.  He. 
had  an  indiscreet  pugnacity,  and  could  not  resist  the  temp 
tation  to  bump  and  thump  and  jolt  an  adversary,  whether  in 
his  own  party  or  on  the  other  side.  The  Democracy  hated 
him  for  his  attack  on  Davis  and  the  South  eight  years  before. 
Grant  bore  him  no  good-will.  Conkling's  vengeance  was  eter 
nal.  Arthur  would  have  been  more  than  human  had  he  felt 
no  resentment  for  Elaine's  avowed  hostility  and  contempt. 

The  day  of  their  revenge  had  come.  His  foes — and  they 
were  many  among  Republicans  as  well  as  among  Democrats — 
adopted  the  apothegm  of  Beaumarchais : 

"Calumniate!     Calumniate!     Something  will  always  stick." 

Caricature  reinforced  lampoon  and  pasquinade.  The  ter 
rible  "Tattooed  Man,"  perhaps  the  most  cruel  and  brutal,  as 
it  certainly  was  the  most  effective  cartoon  of  our  time,  kept 
constantly  before  the  people  the  vague  assault  upon  his  integ 
rity,  which  was  one  of  the  most  formidable  weapons  of  his 
opponents. 

He  was  abstemious  in  his  habits,  correct  in  his  life,  and  a 
church  member,  but  he  never  had  the  unreserved  confidence 
of  the  moral  element  of  the  country. 

Conscious  of  the  desperate  malignity  of  the  coalition 
against  him,  Elaine  conducted  his  campaign  with  immense 
energy.  Many  Republican  papers  deserted  him  and  openly 
supported  Cleveland.  Others  were  lukewarm,  and  carped 


ELAINE'S  IJFE  TRAGEDY.  439 

and  sniveled,  but  he  "flew  an  eagle's  flight,  bold  and  forth 
on."  His  health  was  precarious  and  the  strain  enormous. 

With  a  physician  and  a  private  car,  he  traveled  North 
and  West,  arousing  prodigious  enthusiasm,  like  a  conqueror 
returning  from  battle.  Hope  elevated  and  joy  brightened 
his  crest. 

Had  he  remained  on  his  tour  as  originally  planned,  it 
seems  now  he  might  have  won;  but  New  York  was  doubtful, 
and  its  electoral  vote  would  decide  the  result.  A  vast  pro 
cession  of  merchants  and  representative  business  men,  march 
ing  with  Cleveland  banners  many  hours  to  the  refrain, 
"Dear  Mr.  Fisher:  Burn,  burn,  burn  this  letter!" 

terrified  the  Republican  managers,  who  thought  some  counter- 
demonstration  indispensable,  and  Elaine  consented  to  attend 
a  banquet  October  2 9th.  At  ten  o'clock  the  morning  of  that 
day  a  delegation  of  clergymen  called  on  him  at  the  Fifth 
Avenue  Hotel  with  assurances  of  their  sympathy  and  support. 
The  spokesman  was  the  Rev.  Dr.  Burchard,  who  said  in  the 
course  of  his  improvised  remarks:  "We  are  Republicans, 
and  don't  propose  to  leave  our  party  and  identify  ourselves 
with  the  party  whose  antecedents  have  been  Rum,  Roman 
ism,  and  Rebellion!-' 

How  many  votes  this  apt  alliteration  alienated  will  never 
be  known ;  but  after  several  days  of  suspicious  delay  subse 
quent  to  the  election,  the  Democratic  officials  announced  that 
Cleveland  had  carried  the  State  by  1,047  votes.  That  they 
falsified  the  returns,  gave  Butler 's  vote  to  Cleveland,  and  stole 
the  State  from  Blaine  is  beyond  reasonable  doubt. 

After  his  defeat,  Blaine  finished  his  "Twenty  Years  in  Con 
gress,"  and  in  1887  went  to  Europe.  He  wrote  from  Paris,  in 


440  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

November,  to  the  chairman  of  the  National  Committee,  that 
under  no  circumstances  would  he  be  a  candidate  again. 

His  withdrawal  turned  the  contest  of  1888  into  a  free-for- 
all  scrub  race.  Hawley,  Gresham,  Harrison,  Allison,  Alger, 
Depew,  Sherman,  Fitler,  Rusk,  Ingalls,  Phelps,  Lincoln,  and 
McKinley  received  votes  on  the  first  ballot,  June  28th,  Sher 
man  being  in  the  lead  with  229.  Blaine  cabled  from  Edin 
burgh,  June  24th,  requesting  his  friends  to  refrain  from  voting 
for  him. 

Harrison  was  nominated  and  elected,  and  Blaine  entered 
his  Cabinet  as  Secretary  of  State,  to  complete  the  work  inter 
rupted  by  the  death  of  Garfield.  But  his  strength  was  not 
equal  to  the  task.  While  in  Italy  the  previous  year,  he  had 
been  stricken  with  paralysis,  and  his  physical  and  mental 
powers  never  regained  their  vigor. 

He  became  irregular  in  his  attendance  at  the  department, 
and  performed  its  routine  duties  at  his  house,  one  of  the 
famous  mansions  of  Washington,  shadowed  by  the  memory 
of  many  tragedies.  Its  first  occupant  was  Secretary  Spencer, 
whose  son  was  hanged  at  sea  for  mutiny.  At  its  door  Philip 
Barton  Key  was  shot  by  General  Sickles.  In  one  of  its  upper 
chambers  Secretary  Seward  was  assaulted  by  Payne  the  night 
of  Lincoln's  assassination,  and  nearly  stabbed  to  death.  Sec 
retary  Belknap  was  its  next  tenant,  and  death  was  his  guest. 

\Vhen  Blaine  entered  this  abode  in  1889,  his  three  sons  and 
three  daughters  were  living.  January  15,  1890,  the  eldest  son, 
Walker,  a  young  man  of  great  promise,  the  prop  and  staff  of 
his  father,  died. 

A  little  more  than  two  weeks  later,  February  2d,  the  eldest 
daughter,  wife  of  Colonel  Coppinger,  died  under  circumstances 
peculiarly  tragic  and  distressing.  June  18,  1892,  his  second 


ELAINE'S  LIFE  TRAGEDY.  441 

son,  Hmmons,  died  in  Chicago  from  exposure  and  over-exertion 
to  secure  his  father 's  nomination  at  Minneapolis.  His  sorrows 
came  not  as  single  spies,  but  in  battalions. 

There  was  no  cordiality  between  Harrison  and  Elaine. 
The  Secretary  had  been  a  confirmed  invalid  since  1887,  and 
was  unable  to  bear  the  burdens  of  his  great  office.  Much  of 
the  work  of  the  Department  of  State  for  which  Elaine  refused 
credit  was  performed  by  the  President,  who  had  refused,  it 
was  rumored,  to  appoint  Walker  Elaine  First  Assistant  Sec 
retary  and  to  nominate  Colonel  Coppinger  as  brigadier- 
general  over  many  seniors  in  the  service. 

Elaine's  friends  characterized  Harrison  as  a  scorpion,  and 
the  situation  became  tense  as  the  time  for  nominating  his 
successor  drew  nigh.  Harrison  was  a  candidate  for  a  second 
term,  and  Elaine  stated  publicly  that  he  was  not  in  the  field. 
His  declaration  was  superfluous,  for  it  was  an  open  secret  that 
he  was  mortally  ill  and  incapable  of  the  fatigue  and  stress  of 
a  campaign. 

Suddenly  yielding  to  what  sinister  suggestion,  what  evil 
importunity,  can  never  be  known,  at  the  last  moment,  the 
afternoon  of  Saturday,  June  4th,  he  resigned  from  the  Cabinet. 

The  convention  at  Minneapolis  was  to  meet  the  following 
Tuesday,  and  Elaine's  action  "could  only  mean  one  thing": 
an  open  alliance  with  the  enemies  of  the  President.  He  imme 
diately  left  Washington  for  Maine,  tarrying  at  Young's  Hotel 
in  Boston  to  receive  bulletins  from  the  convention. 

On  the  fourth  day,  June  loth,  he  was  put  in  nomination  by 
Senator  Wolcott,  of  Colorado. 

The  scene  was  indescribably  pathetic. 

All  knew  he  was  at  the  threshold  of  eternity,  but  at  the 
mention  of  his  name  the  innumerable  hosts  broke  into  con- 


442  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

fused  and  volleyed  thunders  that  for  twenty-seven  minutes 
seemed  to  shake  the  foundations  of  earth  and  sky. 

Like  the  chorus  of  an  anthem,  with  measured  solemnity, 
the  galleries  chanted,  "Elaine!  Elaine!  James  G.  Elaine!" 
myriads  of  stamping  feet  keeping  barbaric  rhythm,  while 
plumes  and  banners  waved,  and  women  with  flags  and  scarfs 
filled  the  atmosphere  with  motion  and  color  and  light. 

It  was  the  passing  of  Elaine.  That  gigantic  demonstra 
tion  was  at  once  a  salutation  and  a  requiem.  The  Republican 
party  there  took  leave  of  their  dying  leader,  and  bade  him  an 
eternal  farewell. 


KANSAS:     1541—1891. 


The  other  continents  are  convex,  with  an  interior  dome  or 
range,  from  whose  declivities  the  waters  descend  to  the  cir 
cumference;  but  North  America  is  concave,  having  mountain 
systems  parallel  with  its  eastern  and  western  coasts,  whose 
principal  streams  fall  into  the  Atlantic  and  the  Pacific. 

Between  the  Appalachian  and  the  Cordilleran  regions  a  vast 
central  valley,  more  than  two  thousand  miles  wide  from  rim  to 
rim,  extends  with  uniform  contour  from  the  tropics  to  the  pole. 
The  crest  of  this  colossal  cavity  nearly  coincides  with  the  bound 
ary  between  the  Dominion  and  the  United  States,  its  northern 
part  drained  by  the  Mackenzie  and  Red  rivers  into  the  Arctic 
Ocean,  and  its  southern,  by  the  Mississippi  and  its  six  hundred 
tributaries,  into  the  Gulf  of  Mexico. 

In  a  remote  geological  age  this  continental  trough  was  the 
bed  of  an  inland  sea,  whose  billows  broke  upon  the  Allegha- 
nies  and  the  Rocky  Mountains — archipelagoes  with  precipitous 
islands  rising  abruptly  from  the  desolate  main. 

The  subsiding  ocean  left  enormous  saline  deposits,  which, 
at  varying  depths,  underlie  much  of  its  surface,  and  which  later 
were  succeeded  by  tropical  forests  and  jungles,  nurtured  by 
heat  and  moisture,  their  carbon  stratified  in  the  coal  measures 
of  the  interior,  and  beneath  whose  impervious  shadows,  after 
many  centuries,  wandered  herds  of  gigantic  monsters,  their 
fossil  remains  yet  found  in  the  loess  of  the  Solomon  and  the 

443 


444  JOHN  JAMES  ING  ALLS. 

Smoky  Hill.  In  a  subsequent  epoch,  as  the  land  became  cooler 
by  radiation  and  firmer  by  drainage,  the  saurians  were  suc 
ceeded  by  ruminants,  like  the  buffalo  and  the  antelope,  which 
pastured  in  myriads  upon  the  succulent  herbage,  and  followed 
the  seasons  in  their  endless  migrations. 

Mysterious  colonizations  of  strange  races  of  men — the 
Aztecs,  the  Mound-builders,  the  Cave-dwellers — whose  genesis 
is  unknown,  appeared  upon  the  fertile  plains  and  perished, 
leaving  no  traces  of  their  wars  and  their  religions,  save  the  rude 
weapons  that  the  plough  exhumes  from  their  ruined  fortifica 
tions,  and  the  broken  idols  that  irreverent  science  discovers 
in  their  sacrificial  mounds. 

Upon  the  western  acclivity  of  the  basin,  where  its  synclinal 
axis  is  intersected  by  its  greater  diameter,  lies  the  State  of 
Kansas — "Smoky  Waters " ;  so  called  from  the  blue  and  pensive 
haze  which  in  autumn  dims  the  recesses  of  the  forests,  the  hol 
lows  of  the  hills,  and  broods  above  the  placid  streams  like  a 
covenant  of  peace.  It  is  quadrangular — save  for  the  excision 
of  its  northeastern  corner  by  the  meanderings  of  the  Missouri — 
200  miles  wide  by  400  miles  long,  and  contains  the  geograph 
ical  centre  of  the  territory  of  the  United  States.  Its  area  of 
52,000,000  acres  gradually  ascends  from  an  elevation  of  900 
feet  above  tide-water  to  the  altitude  of  4,000  feet  at  its 
western  boundary.  It  has  a  mean  annual  temperature  of  53°, 
with  a  rainfall  of  37  plus  inches;  an  average  of  30  thunder 
storms,  198  days  exempt  from  frost,  and  136,839  miles  of  wind 
every  year.  This  inclined  plane  is  reticulated  by  innumerable 
arroyos,  or  dry  runs,  which  collect  the  storm-waters,  whose 
accumulations  scour  deepening  channels  in  the  friable  soil  as 
they  creep  sinuously  eastward,  forming  by  their  union  the 
Kaw  (or  Kansas)  and  Arkansas  rivers. 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  445 

The  confines  of  the  valleys  are  the  "bluffs,"  no  higher  than 
the  general  level  of  the  land,  worn  into  ravines  and  gulches  by 
frost  and  wind  and  rain,  carving  the  limestone  ledges  into  fan 
tastic  architecture,  and  depositing  at  their  base  an  alluvion 
of  inexhaustible  fertility.  Dense  forests  of  elm,  cottonwood, 
walnut,  and  sycamore,  mantled  with  parasitic  growths,  clothe 
the  cliffs  and  crags  with  verdure,  and  gradually  encroach  upon 
the  "rolling  prairies."  The  eye  wanders  with  tranquil  satis 
faction  and  unalloyed  delight  over  these  fluctuating  fields, 
treeless  except  along  the  margins  of  the  indolent  streams ;  gor 
geous  in  summer  with  the  fugitive  splendor  of  grass  and  flowers, 
in  autumn  billows  of  bronze,  and  in  winter  desolate  with  the 
melancholy  glory  of  undulating  snows. 

By  imperceptible  transition,  the  rolling  prairies  merge  into 
the  "Great  Plains,"  plateaus  elevated  above  the  humid  cur 
rents  of  the  atmosphere;  rainless  except  for  casual  showers; 
presenting  a  sterile  expanse,  with  vegetation  repulsive  and 
inedible;  a  level  monotony  broken  at  irregular  intervals  by 
detached  knobs  and  isolated  buttes.  Above  their  vague  and 
receding  horizon  forever  broods  a  pathetic  and  mysterious 
solemnity,  born  of  distance,  silence,  and  solitude. 

The  dawn  of  modern  history  broke  upon  Kansas  three  and 
a  half  centuries  ago,  when  Marcos  de  N$za,  a  Franciscan  friar, 
returning  from  a  missionary  tour  among  the  Pueblos,  brought 
rumors  of  populous  cities  and  mines  richer  than  Golconda  and 
Potosi  in  the  undiscovered  country  beyond  the  Sierra-  Madre. 
In  1541,  twenty  years  after  the  conquest  of  Mexico  by  Cortez, 
Francisco  Vasquez  de  Coronado,  under  the  orders  of  Mendoza, 
Viceroy  of  India,  with  a  little  army  of  300  Spaniards  and  800 
Mexicans,  marched  northward  from  Culiacan,  then  the  limit  of 
Spanish  dominion,  on  an  errand  of  discovery  and  spoliation. 


446  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Crossing  the  mountains  at  the  head  of  the  Gila  River,  he  reached 
the  sources  of  the  Del  Norte,  and  continued  northeasterly  into 
the  Mississippi  Valley,  descending  from  the  plains  to  the  prai 
ries,  crossing  the  present  area  of  Kansas  diagonally  nearly  to 
the  fortieth  degree  of  north  latitude. 

At  the  farthest  point  reached  in  his  explorations  he  erected 
a  high  cross  of  wood,  with  the  inscription,  "Franciso  Vasquez 
de  Coronado,  commander  of  an  expedition,  reached  this  place." 
He  left  some  priests  to  establish  missions  among  the  Indians, 
but  they  were  soon  slain.  In  his  report  to  Mendoza,  at  Mexico, 
Coronado  wrote: 

"The  earth  is  the  best  possible  for  all  kinds  of  productions  of  Spain. 
I  found  prunes,  some  of  which  were  black,  also  excellent  grapes  and  mul 
berries.  I  crossed  mighty  plains  and  sandy  heaths,  smooth  and  weari 
some,  and  bare  of  wood,  and  as  full  of  crooked-back  oxen  as  the  mountain 
Serena  in  Spain  is  of  sheep." 

Coronado  was  followed  sixty  years  later  by  Don  Juan  de 
Onate,  the  conqueror  of  New  Mexico,  and  in  1662  by  Penalosa, 
then  its  Governor,  who  marched  from  Santa  Fe,  and  was  pro 
foundly  impressed  by  the  agricultural  resources  of  the  country 
which  he  traversed. 

The  desultory  efforts  of  the  Spaniards  to  subdue  the  sav 
ages  and  acquire  control  of  the  territory  continued  for  a  cen 
tury,  when  the  French  became  their  competitors,  under  the 
leadership  of  Marque tte,  Joliet,  Hennepin,  Iberville,  and  La 
Salle,  by  whom  formal  possession  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  was 
taken  in  1682  for  Louis  XIV.  By  this  monarch  the  whole 
province  of  Louisiana,  including  what  is  now  called  Kansas, 
with  a  monopoly  of  traffic  with  the  Indian  tribes,  was  granted 
in  1712  to  Crozat,  a  wealthy  merchant  of  Paris,  who  soon  sur 
rendered  his  patent,  and  its  privileges  were  transferred  to  the 
Mississippi  Company.  Under  their  auspices  the  city  of  New 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  447 

Orleans  was  founded  in  1718  by  Bienville,  who,  in  the  following 
year,  dispatched  an  expedition  under  the  command  of  Colonel 
du  Tissonet,  who  visited  the  Osages  at  their  former  location  in 
Kansas,  and  crossed  the  prairies  1 20  miles  to  the  villages  of  the 
Pa'wnees  at  the  mouth  of  the  Republican  River,  where  Fort 
Riley  now  stands.  He  continued  his  march  westward  200 
miles  to  the  land  of  the  Padoucahs,  where  he  also  set  up  a  cross, 
with  the  arms  of  the  French  king,  September  27,  1719. 

In  1724  De  Bourgmont  explored  northern  Kansas,  starting 
from  the  "Grand  Detour,"  where  the  city  of  Atchison  now 
stands.  In  1762  Kansas,  with  the  rest  of  the  Louisiana  Terri 
tory,  was  ceded  by  France  to  Spain.  In  1801  it  was  retroceded 
by  Spain  to  France.  On  the  3oth  of  April,  1803,  it  was  sold 
by  Napoleon,  then  First  Consul,  to  the  United  States,  Thomas 
Jefferson,  President.  This  was  the  largest  real-estate  trans 
action  which  occurred  that  year,  being  756,961,280  acres  for 
$27,267,621,  being  at  the  rate  of  about  3*  cents  per  acre.  The 
Anglo-Saxon  was  at  last  in  the  ascendant. 

Attached  in  1804  by  act  of  Congress  to  the  "Indian  Ter 
ritory,"  the  following  year  to  the  "Territory  of  Louisiana,"  and 
in  1812  to  the  "Territory  of  Missouri,"  Kansas  remained,  after 
the  admission  of  that  State  in  1820,  detached,  without  local 
government  or  a  name,  until  its  permanent  organization  thirty- 
four  years  afterwards. 

This  mysterious  region,  so  far,  so  fascinating,  the  object  of 
so  much  interest  and  desire,  inaccessible  except  by  long  voy 
ages  on  mighty  rivers  whose  sources  were  unknown,  'or  by 
weary  journeys  in  slow  caravans  disappearing  beyond  the 
frontier,  had  for  some  unknown  reason  long  been  marked  on 
the  maps  of  explorers  and  described  in  the  text  of  geographers 
as  the  "Great  American  Desert." 


448  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Though  for  many  centuries  populous  and  martial  Indian 
tribes,  the  aristocracy  of  the  continent,  making  war  their  occu 
pation  and  the  chase  their  pastime,  had,  without  husbandry, 
sustained  their  wild  cavalry  upon  its  harvests;  though  the 
Spanish  adventurers  had  reported  that  "its  earth  was  strong 
and  black,  well  watered  by  brooks,  streams,  and  rivers  " ;  though 
the  French  trappers  and  voyageurs  had  enriched  tke  merchants 
of  St.  Louis,  New  Orleans,  and  Paris  with  its  furs  and  peltries ; 
though  Lewis  and  Clarke  had  penetrated  its  solitudes  and 
blazed  a  pathway  to  the  Pacific;  though  Pike  had  discovered 
the  frowning  peak  indissolubly  associated  with  his  name ;  and 
Pursley  and  the  traders  of  Santa  Fe  had  traversed  the  prai 
ries  of  the  Arkansas  and  the  mesas  of  the  Pecos — yet,  in  pop 
ular  belief  half  a  century  ago  the  trans-Missouri  plains  were 
classed  with  the  steppes  of  Tartary  and  the  arid  wastes  of  Gobi. 

The  flight  of  the  Mormons  to  Salt  Lake  in  1844,  and  the 
California  exodus  in  1849,  following  the  trail  which  was  suc 
ceeded  by  the  pony  express,  the  overland  stage-line,  and  the 
Union  Pacific  Railroad,  familiarized  thousands  of  travelers 
from  all  parts  of  the  country  with  its  enchanting  landscape,  its 
superb  climate,  and  its  unrivalled  though  unsuspected  capaci 
ties  for  agriculture  and  civilization.  To  them  it  was  not  a  des 
ert;  it  was  an  oasis,  compared  with  which,  in  resources,  fertil 
ity,  and  possibilities  of  opulence,  all  the  rest  of  the  earth  was 
Sahara. 

The  surf  of  the  advancing  tide  of  population  chafed  rest 
lessly  against  the  barrier,  realizing  the  truth  of  the  ma-jestic  and 
impressive  sentence  of  Tocqueville,  written  a  quarter  of  a  cen 
tury  before: 

"  This  gradual  and  continuous  progress  of  the  European  race  towards 
the  Rocky  Mountains  has  the  solemnity  of  a  providential  event ;  it  is  like 
a  deluge  of  men  rising  unabatedly,  and  daily  driven  onward  by  the  hand 
of  God." 


KANSAS:     1541  — 1891.  449 

The  origin  or  genesis  of  States  is  usually  obscure  and  legend 
ary,  with  prehistoric  periods  from  which  they  gradually  emerge 
like  coral  islands  from  the  deep.  Shadowy  and  crepuscular 
intervals  precede  the  day,  in  whose  uncertain  light  men  and 
events,  distorted  or  exaggerated  by  tradition,  become  fabulous, 
like  the  gods  and  goddesses,  the  wars  and  heroes  of  antiquity. 
But  Kansas  has  no  mythology;  its  history  has  no  twilight. 
The  foundation-stones  of  the  State  were  laid  in  the  full  blaze  of 
the  morning  sun,  with  the  world  as  interested  spectators.  Its 
architects  were  announced,  their  plans  disclosed,  and  the  work 
men  have  reared  its  walls  and  crowned  its  dome  without  con 
cealment  of  their  objects,  and  with  no  attempt  to  disguise  their 
satisfaction  with  the  results.  Nothing  has  been  done  furtively 
nor  in  a  corner. 

The  first  bill  for  the  organization  of  Kansas  was  presented 
by  Senator  Douglas  in  1843,  under  the  name  of  the  Territory 
of  Nebraska.  The  next,  two  years  later,  named  it  the  Territory 
of  Platte,  and  afterwards  it  was  again  twice  called  Nebraska. 

January  23,  1854,  Senator  Douglas  reported  as  a  substitute 
for  his  former  measure  the  bill  for  the  organization  of  the  Ter 
ritories  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska,  which,  after  fierce  and  acri 
monious  debate,  passed  both  houses  of  Congress,  and  was 
approved  by  President  Pierce  on  the  3oth  of  May.  The  east 
ern,  northern,  and  southern  boundaries  of  Kansas  were  the 
same  as  now.  Its  western  limit  extended  673  miles,  to  the  sum 
mit  of  the  Rocky  Mountains,  including  more  than  half  of  the 
present  area  of  Colorado,  with  its  richest  mines  and  its  largest 
cities. 

Intense  political  excitement  preceded  and  followed  the  re- 
peal  of  the  Missouri  Compromise,  which  gave  the  measure  its 
chief  political  significance,  and  the  conquest  of  Kansas  was  not 


45Q  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  cause,  but  the  occasion,  of  the  conflict  which  ensued.  The 
question  of  freedom  or  slavery  in  the  Territory,  and  in  the  State 
to  be,  was  important,  it  is  true,  but  it  was  merely  an  incident 
in  the  tragedy,  unsurpassed  in  the  annals  of  our  race,  opening 
with  the  exchange  of  fourteen  slaves  for  provisions  by  the 
Dutch  man-of-war  in  the  harbor  of  Jamestown  in  1619,  and 
whose  prologue  was  pronounced  by  the  guns  that  thundered 
their  acclamations  when  the  Confederate  flag  was  lowered  for 
the  last  time  upon  the  field  of  Appomattox. 

The  incipient  commonwealth  lay  in  the  westward  path  of 
empire — the  zone  within  which  the  great  commanders,  orators, 
philosophers,  and  prophets  of  the  world  have  been  born ;  in 
which  its  Savior  was  crucified;  in  which  its  decisive  battles 
were  fought,  its  victories  over  man  and  nature  won;  the 
triumphs  of  humanity  and  civilization  achieved. 

Had  the  formation  of  its  domestic  institutions  alone  been 
the  stake,  it  ,would  still  have  been  compensative  for  the  valor 
of  heroes  and  the  blood  of  martyrs.  The  diplomacy  of  great 
powers  has  often  exhausted  its  devices  upon  more  trivial  pre 
texts,  and  nations  have  been  desolated  with  wars  waged  under 
Caesars  and  Napoleons  for  the  subjugation  of  provinces  of  nar 
rower  bounds  and  inferior  fertility. 

But  there  was  a  profound  conviction,  a  premonition,  among 
thoughtful  men,  that  vastly  more  was  involved ;  that  further 
postponement  of  the  duel  between  the  antagonistic  forces  in 
our  political  system  was  impossible;  that  the  existence  of  the 
Union,  the  perpetuity  of  free  institutions,  and  the  success  of  the 
experiment  of  self-government  depended  upon  the  issue. 

The  statesmen  of  the  South,  long  accustomed  to  supremacy, 
had  beheld  with  angry  apprehension  the  menacing  increase  of 
the  North  in  wealth  and  population;  the  irresistible  tendency 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891  451 

of  emigration  to  the  intermontane  regions  of  the  West  and  the 
Northwest,  already  dedicated  to  freedom.  With  prophetic  vis 
ion  they  foresaw  the  admission  of  free  States  that  would  make 
the  South  a  minority  in  the  Senate,  as  it  was  already  in  the 
House,  and  hasten  the  destruction  of  the  system  of  servile 
labor,  upon  which  they  wrongly  believed  their  prosperity  to 
depend. 

The  conscience  of  the  North  apparently  became  dormant 
upon  the  subject  of  the  immorality  of  slavery,  when,  ceasing 
to  be  profitable,  it  disappeared,  by  the  operation  of  natural 
laws,  from  the  valleys  of  the  Merrimac,  the  Connecticut,  and 
the  Hudson.  It  seemed  to  have  been  lulled  into  an  eternal 
sleep  by  the  anodyne  of  the  Missouri  Compromise ;  but  it  was 
roused  into  renewed  activity  when  the  repeal  of  that  ordinance, 
supplemented  by  the  Dred  Scott  decision,  disclosed  the  inten 
tions  of  the  Southern  leaders  to  maintain  their  ascendency  by 
the  extension  of  slavery  over  all  the  Territories  of  the  Republic, 
a  policy  whose  success  threatened  their  political  supremacy  and 
their  industrial  independence. 

Events  have  shown  that  the  magnitude  and  significance  of 
the  Kansas  episode  were  not  exaggerated.  It  was  the  prelude 
to  a  martial  symphony,  the  preface  to  a  volume  whose  finis 
was  not  written  until  the  downfall  of  slavery  was  recorded. 

It  would  be  a  congenial  task,  but  the  present  scope  and 
purpose  neither  require  nor  permit  a  detailed  narrative  of  the 
tumultuous  interval  from  the  organization  of  the  Territory 
to  the  admission  of  the  State.  Its  history  has  been  written 
by  its  partisans.  Its  actors  have  been  portrayed  by  their 
foes  or  their  worshippers.  The  contests  waged  by  Atchison 
and  Stringfellow  against  the  Abolitionists,  and  by  Brown  and 
Montgomery  against  "the  border  ruffians";  the  battles  and 


452  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

murders  and  sudden  deaths;  the  burning  of  houses  and  sack 
ing  of  towns;  the  proclamations,  bulletins,  and  platforms;  the 
fraudulent  elections  and  the  dispersion  of  Legislatures — form  a 
unique  chapter  in  our  annals  that  waits  the  impartial  chron 
icler.  Neither  side  was  blameless.  Each  was  guilty  of  wrongs, 
begotten  of  the  passions  of  the  crisis,  that  culminated  during 
the  Rebellion  in  border  forays,  encounters,  reprisals,  and  retali 
ations,  shocking  to  humanity,  whose  memory  time  cannot 
obliterate  nor  charity  condone. 

In  the  preliminary  movement  for  the  occupation  of  the  new 
Territory,  the  slavery  propagandists  had  the  advantage  of 
proximity.  They  swarmed  across  the  Missouri  border,  estab 
lishing  camps,  taking  possession  of  the  polling-places,  securing 
eligible  sites  for  towns,  and,  by  obstructing  the  navigation  of 
the  river,  compelled  the  emigrants  from  the  North  to  make  a 
long,  circuitous  land  journey  through  Iowa  and  Nebraska. 
They  received  reinforcements  and  contributions  of  money, 
stores,  and  arms  from  many  Southern  States,  and  elected 
the  first  Territorial  delegate,  J.  W.  Whitfield,  who  sat  from 
September  20,  1854,  till  the  adjournment  of  the  Thirty- third 
Congress. 

By  the  census  taken  in  February,  1855,  the  number  of  legal 
voters  in  the  Territory  was  2,905;  but  at  the  election  of  mem 
bers  of  the  first  Legislature,  four  weeks  later,  5,427  votes  were 
cast  for  the  Southern  candidates  and  791  for  their  opponents, 
the  increment  being  largely  due  to  the  importation  of  electors 
from  Missouri,  who  came  into  the  Territory  on  the  day  of  the 
election,  and,  having  voted,  returned  home  at  night. 

By  this  guilty  initiative  they  obtained  on  the  threshold  an 
immense  advantage.  They  secured  absolute  control  of  the 
political  agencies  of  the  Territory.  The  Legislature,  which  as- 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  453 

sembled  at  Pawnee  in  July,  adopted  the  slave  code  of  Mis 
souri  en  bloc,  supplementing  these  statutes  with  original  laws 
making  many  new  offenses  against  the  slave  system  punishable 
with  death,  and  compelling  every  official,  candidate,  and  voter 
to  take  an  oath  to  support  the  fugitive-slave  law. 

The  idea  of  permanently  colonizing  Kansas  with  free  labor 
from  the  North  by  systematic  migration,  and  thus  determining 
the  question  of  the  institutions  of  the  new  empire  of  the  West, 
originated  with  Eli  Thayer,  of  Massachusetts,  who  organized 
the  Emigrant  Aid  Society  in  that  State  in  1854.  The  example 
was  immediately  followed  in  other  parts  of  the  North,  and  the 
pioneer  colony  reached  the  mouth  of  the  Kansas  River  July 
28th.  Among  the  most  prominent  leaders  of  the  colonists 
from  New  England  were  Samuel  C.  Pomeroy,  afterwards  for 
twelve  years  a  senator  of  the  United  States;  and  Charles  Rob 
inson,  an  early  settler  in  California,  where  he  had  fallen  in 
an  armed  struggk  for  what  he  believed  to  be  the  cause  of 
popular  rights  against  corporate  injustice  and  tyranny.  By 
one  of  those  singular  and  pleasing  coincidences  which  the  judg 
ment  would  reject  as  an  unreal  and  extravagant  climax  in  a 
romance  or  drama,  he  camped  for  the  night  on  his  overland 
journey  in  1849  in  the  enchanting  valley  of  the  Wakarusa,  to 
which,  five  years  later,  he  returned  to  found  the  city  of  Law 
rence,  the  intellectual  capital  of  the  State,  of  which  he  became 
the  first  Governor,  and  where,  in  the  afternoon  (1891)  of  an 
honorable,  useful,  and  adventurous  career,  he  still  survives, 
his  eye  not  dim  nor  his  natural  force  abated,  the  object  of 
affectionate  regard  and  veneration. 

The  emigrants  from  the  North  were  almost  without  excep 
tion  from  civil  life,  laborers,  farmers,  mechanics,  and  artisans, 
young  men  of  the  middle  class,  reared  in  toil  and  inured  to  pov- 


454  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

erty,  unused  to  arms  and  unschooled  in  war.  They  were  intel 
ligent,  devout,  and  patriotic.  They  came  to  plough  and  plant, 
to  open  farms,  erect  mills,  to  saw  himber  and  grind  corn,  to 
trade,  teach  school,  build  towns,  and  construct  a  free  State. 
But  one  of  them — James  Henry  Lane — had  any  military  experi 
ence.  He  had  been  a  colonel  in  the  Mexican  War  of  an  Indi 
ana  regiment,  and  was  afterwards  a  Democratic  lieutenant- 
governor  and  member  of  Congress  from  that  State.  He  had  an 
extraordinary  assemblage  of  mental,  moral,  and  physical  traits, 
and,  with  even  a  rudimentary  perception  of  the  value  of  per 
sonal  character  as  an  element  of  success  in  public  affairs,  would 
have  been  a  great  leader,  with  an  enduring  fame.  But  in  arms 
he  was  a  Captain  Bobadil,  and  in  politics  a  Rittmeister  Dugald 
Dalgetty.  He  proposed  to  "settle  the  vexed  question  and  save 
Kansas  from  further  outrage"  by  a  battle  between  one  hundred 
slave-holders,  including  Senator  Atchison,  and  one  hundred 
Free  State  men,  including  himself,  to  be  fought  in  the  presence 
of  twelve  United  States  senators  and  twelve  members  of  the 
House  of  Representatives  as  umpires! 

He  was  the  object  of  inexplicable  idolatry  and  unspeakable 
execration.  With  his  partisans,  the  superlatives  of  adulation 
were  feeble  and  meagre;  with  his  foes,  the  lexicon  of  infamy 
contained  no  epithets  sufficiently  lurid  to  express  their  abhor 
rence  and  detestation.  They  alleged  that  he  never  paid  a  debt 
nor  told  the  truth,  save  by  accident  or  on  compulsion,  and  that 
to  reach  the  goal  of  his  ambition  he  had  no  convictions  he 
would  not  sell,  made  no  promise  he  would  not  break,  and  had 
no  friend  he  would  not  betray. 

A  lean,  haggard,  and  sinewy  figure,  with  a  Mephistophelian 
leer  upon  his  shaven  visage,  his  movements  were  alert  and  rest 
less,  like  one  at  bay  and  apprehensive  of  detection.  Professing 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  455 

religion,  he  was  never  even  accused  of  hypocrisy,  for  his  follow 
ers  knew  that  he  partook  of  the  sacrament  as  a  political  device 
to  secure  the  support  of  the  Church;  and  that  with  the  same 
nonchalant  alacrity,  had  he  been  running  for  office  in  Hindustan, 
he  would  have  thrown  his  offspring  to  the  crocodiles  of  the 
Ganges,  or  bowed  among  the  Parsees  at  the  shrine  of  the  sun. 
His  energy  was  tireless  and  his  activity  indefatigable.  No  night 
was  too  dark,  no  storm  too  wild,  no  heat  or  cold  too  excessive, 
no  distance  too  great,  to  delay  his  meteoric  pilgrimages,  with 
dilapidated  garb  and  equipage,  across  the  trackless  prairies 
from  convention  to  convention . 

His  oratory  was  voluble  and  incessant,  without  logic,  learn 
ing,  rhetoric,  or  grace ;  but  the  multitudes  to  whom  he  perpetu 
ally  appealed  hung  upon  his  hoarse  and  harsh  harangues  with 
the  rapture  of  devotees  upon  the  oracular  rhapsodies  of  a 
prophet,  and  responded  to  his  apostrophes  with  frenzied 
enthusiasm. 

He  gained  the  prize  which  he  sought  with  such  fevered  am 
bition  ;  but,  after  many  stormy  and  tempestuous  years,  Neme 
sis,  inevitable  in  such  careers,  demanded  retribution.  He  pre 
sumed  too  far  upon  the  toleration  of  a  constituency  which  had 
honored  him  so  long  and  had  forgiven  him  so  much.  He  tran 
scended  the  limitations  which  the  greatest  cannot  pass.  He 
apostatized  once  too  often ;  and  in  his  second  term  in  the  Sen 
ate,  to  avoid  impending  exposure,  after  a  tragic  interval  of 
despair,  he  died  by  his  own  hand,  surviving  ten  days  after  the 
bullet  had  passed  through  his  brain. 

The  Northern  press,  alive  to  the  importance  of  the  strug 
gle,  united  in  an  appeal  to  public  opinion,  such  as  had  never 
before  been  formulated,  and  despatched  to  the  Territory  a  corps 
of  correspondents  of  unsurpassed  ability  and  passionate  devo- 


456  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

tion  to  liberty.  Foremost  among  these  apostles  were  William 
A.  Phillips,  who,  after  long  and  distinguished  service  in  the 
Army  and  in  Congress,  lives  in  literary  retirement  upon  a  mag 
nificent  estate  near  the  prosperous  city  of  Salina,  which  he 
founded ;  Albert  Dean  Richardson,  whose  assassination  in  New 
York  in  1869  prematurely  closed  a  brilliant  career;  and  James 
Redpath,  subsequently  editor  of  the  North  American  Review. 
Their  contributions  reached  eager  readers  in  every  State,  and 
were  reprinted  beyond  the  seas,  chronicling  every  incident, 
delineating  every  prominent  man,  arousing  indignation  by  the 
recitation  of  the  wrongs  they  denounced,  and  exciting  the  imag 
ination  with  descriptions  of  the  loveliness  of  the  land,  rivalling 
Milton's  portraiture  of  the  Garden  of  Eden.  No  time  was  ever 
so  minutely  and  so  indelibly  photographed  upon  the  public  ret 
ina.  The  name  of  no  State  was  ever  on  so  many  friendly  and  so 
many  hostile  tongues.  It  was  pronounced  in  every  political 
speech,  and  inserted  in  every  party  platform.  No  region  wras 
ever  so  advertised,  and  the  impression  then  produced  has  never 
passed  away. 

The  journalists  were  reinforced  by  the  poets,  artists,  novel 
ists,  and  orators  of  an  age  distinguished  for  genius,  learning, 
and  inspiration.  Lincoln,  Douglas,  Seward,  and  Sumner  deliv 
ered  their  most  memorable  speeches  upon  the  theme.  Phillips 
and  Beecher,  then  at  the  meridian  of  their  powers,  appealed  to 
the  passions  and  the  conscience  of  the  Nation  by  unrivalled 
eloquence  and  invective.  Prizes  were  offered  for  lyrics,  that 
\vere  obtained,  so  profound  was  the  impulse,  by  obscure  and 
unknown  competitors.  Lowell,  Bryant,  Holmes,  Longfellow, 
and  Emerson  lent  the  magic  of  their  verse.  Whittier  was  the 
laureate  of  the  era.  His  ' '  Burial  of  Barbour ' '  and  ' '  Marais  du 
Cygne"  seemed  like  a  prophet's  cry  for  vengeance  to  the  immi- 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  457 

grants,   who  marched   to   the   inspiring  strains  of  "Suona  la 
Tromba,"  or  chanted,  to  the  measure  of  "Auld  Lang-Syne," 

"We  cross  the  prairies  as  of  old 
Our  fathers  crossed  the  sea." 

The  contagion  spread  to  foreign  lands,  and  alien  torches 
were  lighted  at  the  flame.  Walter  Savage  Landor  wrote  an 
ode  to  free  Kansas.  Lady  Byron  collected  money,  which  she 
sent  to  the  author  of  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin,"  for  the  relief  of  the 
sufferers  in  Kansas.  Volunteers  from  Italy,  France,  and 
Germany,  revolutionists  and  exiles,  served  in  the  desultory 
war,  many  of  whom  afterwards  fought  with  distinction  in  the 
armies  of  the  Union.  It  was  the  romance  of  history.  The 
indescribable  agitation  which  always  attends  the  introduction 
of  a  great  moral  question  into  politics  pervaded  the  souls  of 
men,  transforming  the  commonplace  into  the  ideal,  and  inaug 
urating  a  heroic  epoch.  The  raptures  that  swelled  the  hearts 
of  the  pioneers  yet  thrill  and  vibrate  in  the  blood  of  their  pos 
terity,  like  the  chords  of  a  smitten  harp  when  the  player  has 
departed. 

The  Free  State  settlers,  being  powerless  to  overcome  or 
reverse  the  political  action  of  their  adversaries,  adopted  the 
policy  of  ignoring  it  altogether.  They  resolved  to  endeavor 
to  change  the  Territory  into  a  State  without  the  formality  of  an 
enabling  act  of  Congress.  Their  competence  to  do  this  was 
denied,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  in  opposition  to  the  regularly 
organized  political  authorities ;  but  they  chose  delegates  to  a 
convention,  which  met  at  Topeka,  and  framed  a  Constitution 
that  was  adopted  in  December,  1855,  by  1,731  for  to  46  against, 
its  friends  only  participating  in  the  election. 

A  governor  and  other  State  officers  and  a  delegate  in  Con 
gress  were  chosen  in  January.  The  national  House  of  Repre- 


458  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

sentatives,  July  3,  1856,  passed  a  bill  for  the  admission  of  the 
State  under  this  Constitution,  but  it  was  rejected  in  the  Senate. 
Acting,  however,  upon  the  theory  that  the  State  existed, 
the  Legislature  chosen  under  the  Topeka  Constitution  assem 
bled  July  4,  1856,  but  was  dispersed  by  United  States  troops 
commanded  by  Colonel  Sumner  on  the  order  of  President 
Pierce,  who  denounced  the  movement  as  an  insurrection 
requiring  the  forcible  interposition  of  national  authority. 
Further  attempts  to  organize  were  thwarted  by  the  arrest  of 
the  leaders  for  usurpation  of  office  and  misprision  of  treason. 

Immigration  from  the  North  increased,  and  under  the  assur 
ance  of  Governor  Walker  that  the  election  should  be  honest 
and  peaceable,  the  two  parties  had  the  first  actual  test  of  their 
relative  strength  October,  1857,  when  the  Free  State  electors 
chose  thirty- three  out  of  fifty-two  members  of  the  Legislature. 
For  delegate  in  Congress  3,799  votes  were  cast  for  Epaphro- 
ditus  Ransom,  who  had  been  Governor  of  Michigan,  1848-49, 
and  7,888  for  Marcus  J.  Parrott,  an  ambitious  and  popular 
member  of  the  Leavenworth  bar. 

Born  in  South  Carolina,  of  Huguenot  ancestry,  Parrott  was 
at  an  early  age  domiciled  in  Ohio,  whither  his  family  had 
removed  to  escape  the  contaminating  influences  of  slavery. 
He  was  graduated  at  Yale,  and  trained  to  the  law.  He  came 
to  the  Territory  two  years  before,  at  the  age  of  twenty-six, 
politically  in  sympathy  with  the  party  in  power,  and  expecting 
to  be  the  recipient  of  its  favors.  Imbued  with  a  passion  for 
liberty,  he  revolted  at  the  methods  pursued  by  its  foes,  and 
espoused  the  cause  of  freedom  with  the  ardor  of  a  generous  and 
impulsive  nature.  Reared  in  affluence,  and  of  easy  fortune, 
he  was  familiar  with  the  ways  of  the  world,  and  united  to  the 
bearing  of  a  courtier  a  captivating  suavity  of  address,  which 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  459 

propitiated  all  sorts  and  conditions  of  men.  He  was  like  a 
thread  of  gold  shot  through  the  rough  woof  of  the  frontier. 
Though  not  of  heroic  stature,  his  dark,  vivacious  countenance, 
the  rich  melody  of  his  voice,  and  his  impressive  elocution,  gave 
him  great  power  as  an  orator.  He  possessed  the  fatal  gift 
of  fluency,  but,  wanting  depth  and  sincerity,  seemed  like  an 
actor  seeking  applause,  rather  than  a  leader  striving  to  direct, 
or  a  statesman  endeavoring  to  convince  the  understanding  of 

his  followers.  His  service  in  Congress  demanded  the  indulgent 
judgment  of  his  constituents,  and  failing  of  an  election  to  the 

Senate  when  the  State  was  admitted,  he  yielded  to  the  allure 
ments  of  appetite,  squandered  two  fortunes  in  travel  and  pleas 
ure,  and  the  splendid  light  of  his  prophetic  morning  sank  lower 
and  lower  until  it  was  quenched  in  the  outer  darkness  of  gloom 
and  desolation. 

The  leaders  of  the  Pro-slavery  forces  from  this  time  prac 
tically  abandoned  their  aggressive  efforts,  admitting  that  they 
had  been  overcome  by  the  superior  resources  of  the  North ;  but 
the  so-called  "bogus  Legislature,"  before  its  expiration,  called 
another  convention,  which  sat  at  Lecompton,  and  adopted 
the  Constitution  known  in  history  by  that  name.  It  recog 
nized  the  existence  of  slavery  in  the  Territory,  forbade  the 
enactment  of  emancipation  laws,  and  prohibited  amendments 
before  1864.  Knowing  its  fate  if  submitted  to  the  people,  it 
provided  that  only  the  clause  relating  to  slavery  should  be 
voted  upon,  but  that  the  instrument  itself  should  be  estab 
lished  by  act  of  Congress  admitting  the  State.  The  slavery 
clause  was  adopted  by  6,256  to  567,  the  Free  State  men  refrain 
ing  from  voting;  but  as  soon  as  the  new  Legislature  met,  an 
act  was  passed  submitting  the  entire  Constitution  to  the  pop- 


460  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ular  vote,  January  4,  1858,  when  it  was  rejected  by  10,256  to 
162,  the  Pro-slavery  men  not  appearing  at  the  polls. 

The  debate  was  then  transferred  to  Congress,  and  the  effort 
to  admit  the  State  under  the  Lecompton  Constitution  failed, 
although  the*  President  urged  it,  and  its  friends  were  in  a  major 
ity  in  both  houses.  The  tempting  bribe  of  the  English  Bill, 
which  was  offered  as  a  compromise,  was  rejected  by  the  peo 
ple  in  August  by  11,088  to  1,788,  and  thus  the  curtain  fell  on 
Lecompton. 

The  abortive  series  of  constitutions  was  enlarged  by  the 
formation  of  the  fifth  at  Leavenworth,  which  was  also  ratified 
by  the  people,  but  rejected  by  Congress  on  the  ground  that 
the  population  was  insufficient.  The  Territorial  existence  of 
Kansas  closed  with  the  adoption,  October  4,  1859,  by  a  vote  of 
10,421  to  5,530,  of  the  Wyandotte  Constitution,  under  which, 
the  Southern  senators  having  departed,  Kansas  was  admitted 
into  the  Union,  January  29,  1861. 

The  long  procession  of  Governors  and  acting  Governors 
sent  to  rule  over  the  Territory  vanished  away  like  the  show  of 
eight  kings,  the  last  having  a  glass  in  his  hand,  Banquo's  ghost 
following,  in  the  witches'  cavern  in  "Macbeth" — Reeder,  Shan 
non,  Geary,  Stanton,  Walker,  Denver,  Medary,  and  Beebee — 
"come  like  shadows,  so  depart!" 

It  is  a  strange  illustration  of  Anglo-Saxon  pride  of  race,  and 
of  its  haughty  assumption  of  superiority,  that  in  a  State  which 
apotheosized  John  Brown  of  Osawatomie,  and  gave  a  new  def 
inition  to  the  rights  of  man,  suffrage  was  confined  to  "white 
male  citizens."  But  the  people  of  Kansas  were  too  brave  and 
strong  to  be  long  unjust.  The  first  colored  man  regularly 
enlisted  as  a  soldier  was  sworn  and  mustered  at  Fort  Leaven- 
worth.  The  first  colored  regiment  was  raised  in  Kansas,  and 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  461 

the  first  engagement  in  which  negroes  fought  was  under  the 
command  of  a  Kansas  officer,  October  26,  1862.  The  citizen 
longest  in  office  in  the  State — for  nearly  thirty  years — was 
colored,  and  born  a  slave. 

The  admission  of  the  State  and  the  outbreak  of  the.  Rebel 
lion  were  coincident,  and,  as  might  have  been  predicted  from 
their  martial  gestation,  the  people  devoted  themselves  with 
unabated  zeal  to  the  maintenance  of  the  Union.  Being  out 
side  the  field  of  regular  military  operations,  inaccessible  by 
railroads,  exposed  to  guerrilla  incursions  from  Missouri  and 
to  Indian  raids  from  the  south  and  west,  the  campaign  of  de 
fense  was  continuous,  and  for  four  years  the  entire  population 
was  under  arms.  Immigration  ceased.  By  the  census  of  June, 
1860,  the  number  of  inhabitants  was  143,463;  at  the  close  of 
the  war  it  had  declined  to  140,179.  Fields  lay  fallow,  and 
the  fire  of  the  forges  expired.  Towns  were  deserted,  and 
homesteads  abandoned.  The  State  sent  more  soldiers  to  bat 
tle  than  it  had  voters  when  the  war  began.  Under  all  calls, 
its  quota  was  12,931;  it  furnished  20,151,  without  bounty  or 
conscription.  Nineteen  regiments,  five  companies,  and  three 
batteries  participated  in  127  engagements,  of  which  seven 
were  on  her  own  soil.  From  Wilson  Creek  to  the  Gulf  every 
great  field  in  the  Southwest  was  illustrated  by  their  valor  and 
consecrated  by  their  blood.  Her  proportion  of  mortality  in  the 
field  was  the  largest  among  the  States,  exceeding  61  in  each 
1,000  enlistments,  Vermont  following  with  58,  and  Massachu 
setts  with  nearly  48.  Provost-Marshal  General  Fry,  in  his  final 
roster  of  the  Union  armies,  in  which  all  are  alike  entitled  to 
honor,  because  all  alike  did  their  duty,  wrote  this  certificate  of 
precedence  in  glory : 


462  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

"Kansas  shows  the  highest  battle  mortality  of  the  table.  The  same 
singularly  martial  disposition  which  induced  about  one-half  of  the  able- 
bodied  men  of  the  State  to  enter  the  Army  without  bounty  may  be  sup 
posed  to  have  increased  their  exposure  to  the  casualties  of  battle  after  they 
were  in  the  service." 

With  the  close  of  the  war  the  first  decennium  ended,  and 
the  disbanded  veterans  returned  under  the  flag  they  had 
redeemed  to  the  State  they  had  made  free.  Attracted  by 
homesteads  upon  the  public  domain,  by  just  and  liberal  exemp 
tion  laws,  and  by  the  companionship  of  the  brave,  those  heroes 
were  reinforced  by  a  vast  host  of  their  comrades,  representing 
every  arm  of  the  military  and  naval  service  from  all  the  States 
of  the  Union.  Not  less  than  30  per  cent  of  its  electors  have 
fought  in  the  Union  armies,  and  the  present  commander  of  the 
Grand  Army  of  the  Republic,  Timothy  McCarthy,  witnessed 
the  defense  of  Sumter  and  the  surrender  at  Appomattox. 

Population  increased  from  8,601  in  1855  to  140,179  in  1865, 
528,349  in  1875;  1,268,562  in  1885,  and  1,427,096  in  1890.  In 
a  community  so  rapidly  assembled  the  homogeneity  of  its  ele 
ments  is  extraordinary.  Kansas  is  distinctly  the  American 
State.  Less  than  10  per  cent  of  its  inhabitants  are  of  foreign 
birth,  principally  English,  Germans,  and  Scandinavians;  and 
less  than  4  per  cent  of  African  descent.  The  State  is  often 
called  the  child  of  the  Puritans,  but,  contrary  to  the  popular 
impression,  the  immigration  from  New  England  was  compar 
atively  trivial  in  numbers,  much  the  larger  contributions  hav 
ing  been  derived  from  Iowa,  Indiana,  Illinois,  Missouri,  Penn 
sylvania,  New  York,  and  Kentucky.  It  is  the  ideas  of  the  Pil 
grims,  and  not  their  descendants,  that  have  had  dominion  in 
the  young  commonwealth,  which  resembles  primitive  Massa 
chusetts  before  its  middle  classes  had  disappeared  and  its 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  463 

society  become  stratified  into  the  superfluously  rich  and  the 
hopelessly  poor. 

Within  these  pastoral  boundaries  there  are  no  millionaires 
nor  any  paupers,  except  such  as  have  been  deprived  by  age, 
disease,  and  calamity  of  the  ability  to  labor.  No  great  for 
tunes  have  been  brought  to  the  State,  and  none  have  been  ac 
cumulated  by  commerce,  manufactures,  or  speculation.  No 
sumptuous  mansions  nor  glittering  equipages  nor  ostentatious 
display  exasperate  or  allure.  Legislation  protects  wages  and 
cabins  no  less  than  bonds  and  palaces,  and  the  free  school,  the 
jury,  and  impartial  suffrage  have  resulted  in  the  establishment 
of  justice,  liberty,  fraternity,  and  equality  as  the  foundations 
of  the  State. 

Politically,  as  might  have  been  predicted,  the  Republican 
party,  whose  birth  is  indissolubly  associated  with  the  efforts 
to  dedicate  Kansas  to  freedom,  continued  supreme  for  thirty 
years.  During  that  period  the  State  had  but  one  Governor 
and  one  member  of  Congress  of  another  faith,  and  there  have 
been  few  Legislatures  in  which  the  membership  of  the  opposi 
tion  has  risen  as  high  as  20  per  cent.  This  supremacy  has  not 
been  favorable  to  national  leadership,  both  parties  having 
reserved  their  allegiance  and  their  favors  for  more  doubtful 
constituencies. 

An  equlibrium  which  compels  the  presentation  of  strong 
and  unexceptionable  candidates  and  the  practice  of  honesty 
and  economy  in  administration  is  better  than  a  disproportion 
ate  majority  which  makes  the  contest  end  with  a  nomination. 
When  one  party  has  nothing  to  hope  and  the  other  nothing  to 
fear,  degradation  and  decay  are  inevitable.  Intrigue  supplants 
merit;  the  sense  of  responsibility  disappears;  manipulation  of 
primaries,  caucuses,  and  conventions  displaces  the  conflict  and 


464  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

collision  of  opinion  and  debate.  Paltry  ambitions  become  re 
spectable.  Little  men  aspire  to  great  places,  and  distinguished 
careers  are  impossible. 

In  addition  to  those  elsewhere  mentioned,  others  who  have 
been  prominent  in  State  and  national  affairs  are  Martin  F. 
Conway,  the  first  representative  in  Congress,  a  native  of 
Maryland,  a  diminutive,  fair-haired,  blue-eyed  enthusiast, 
with  the  bulging  brow  and  retiring  chin  of  Swinburne,  an 
erratic  political  dreamer,  whose  reveries  ended  at  Saint  Eliza 
beth's;  Generals  James  G.  Blunt,  Robert  B.  Mitchell,  George  \V. 
Deitzler,  Charles  W.  Blair,  Albert  L.  Lee,  and  Powell  Clayton, 
military  leaders,  and  eminent  also  in  civil  life;  Edmund  G. 
Ross,  the  successor  of  Lane  in  the  Senate,  who  forfeited  the 
confidence  of  his  constituents  by  voting  against  the  impeach 
ment  of  President  Johnson,  and  was  subsequently  appointed 
by  President  Cleveland  Governor  of  New  Mexico;  Thomas  A. 
Osborn,  who,  aftei  serving  as  Governor  (1873-77),  nad  a  remark 
ably  successful  diplomatic  career  as  United  States  minister 
to  Chile  and  Brazil;  John  P.  St.  John,  twice  Governor,  prom 
inently  identified  with  the  cause  of  prohibition,  and  the  candi 
date  of  its  advocates  for  the  Presidency  in  1 884 ;  John  A.  Mar 
tin,  a  distinguished  soldier,  editor  of  a  leading  journal,  Gov 
ernor  1884-88,  in  whose  administration  the  municipal  organi 
zation  of  the  State  was  completed;  Preston  B.  Plumb,  senator 
from  1877  until  his  untimely  death,  December  20,  1891;  and 
Bishop  W.  Perkins,  his  successor  by  appointment,  after  sev 
eral  terms  upon  the  bench,  and  eight  years  of  distinguished 
service  in  the  House  of  Representatives;  Thomas  Ryan,  ten 
years  member  of  Congress,  and  now  representing  the  United 
States  as  envoy  extraordinary  and  minister  plenipotentiary  to 
Mexico. 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  465 

Philosophers  and  historians  recognize  the  influence  of  early 
settlers  upon  the  character  and  destinies  of  a  community. 
Original  impulses  are  long  continued,  like  the  characteristics 
and  propensities  which  the  mother  bestows  upon  her  unborn 
child.  The  constant  vicissitudes  of  climate,  of  fortune,  of  his 
tory,  together  with  the  fluctuations  of  politics  and  business, 
have  engendered  in  Kansas  hitherto  perpetual  agitation,  not 
always  favorable  to  happiness,  but  which  has  stimulated  activ 
ity,  kept  the  popular  pulse  feverish,  and  begotten  a  mental 
condition  exalted  above  the  level  monotonies  of  life.  Every 
one  is  on  the  qui  vive,  alert,  vigilant,  like  a  sentinel  at  an  out 
post.  Existence  has  the  excitement  of  a  game  of  chance,  of  a 
revolution,  of  a  battle  whose  event  is  doubtful.  The  unprece 
dented  environment  has  produced  a  temperament  volatile  and 
mercurial,  marked  by  uncalculating  ardor,  enterprise,  intrepid 
ity  and  insatiable  hunger  for  innovation,  out  of  which  has  grown 
a  society  that  has  been  alternately  the  reproach  and  the  marvel 
of  mankind. 

For  a  generation  Kansas  has  been  the  testing-ground  for 
every  experiment  in  morals,  politics,  and  social  life.  Doubt 
of  all  existing  institutions  has  been  respectable.  Nothing  has 
been  venerable  or  revered  merely  because  it  exists  or  has 
endured.  Prohibition,  female  suffrage,  fiat  money,  free  silver, 
every  incoherent  and  fantastic  dream  of  social  improvement 
and  reform,  every  economic  delusion  that  has  bewildered  the 
foggy  brains  of  fanatics,  every  political  fallacy  nurtured  by 
misfortune,  poverty,  and  failure,  rejected  elsewhere,  has  here 
found  tolerance  and  advocacy.  The  enthusiasm  of  youth,  the 
conservatism  of  age,  have  alike  yielded  to  the  contagion,  mak 
ing  the  history  of  the  State  a  melodramatic  series  of  cataclysms, 
in  which  tragedy  and  comedy  have  contended  for  the  mastery, 


466  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

and  the  convulsions  of  Nature  have  been  emulated  by  the  catas 
trophes  of  society.  There  has  been  neither  peace,  tranquillity, 
nor  repose.  The  farmer  can  never  foretell  his  harvest,  nor  the 
merchant  his  gains,  nor  the  politician  his  supremacy.  Some 
thing  startling  has  always  happened,  or  has  been  constant 
ly  anticipated.  The  idol  of  to-day  is  execrated  to-morrow. 
Seasons  of  phenomenal  drought,  when  the  sky  was  brass  and 
the  earth  iron,  have  been  followed  by  periods  of  indescribable 
fecundity,  in  which  the  husbandman  has  been  embarrassed  by 
abundance,  whose  value  has  been  diminished  by  its  excess. 
Cyclones,  blizzards,  and  grasshoppers  have  been  so  identified 
with  the  State  in  public  estimation  as  to  be  described  by  its 
name,  while  some  of  the  bouleversements  of  its  politics  have 
aroused  the  inextinguishable  laughter,  and  others  have  excited 
the  commiseration  and  condemnation,  of  mankind. 

But  as,  in  spite  of  its  anomalies  and  the  obstacles  of  Na 
ture,  the  growth  of  the  State  in  wealth  and  numbers  has  been 
unprecedented,  and  its  condition  is  one  of  stable  and  per 
manent  prosperity;  so,  notwithstanding  the  vagaries  and  ec 
centricities  into  which  by  the  appeals  of  reformers  and  the 
pressure  of  misfortune  they  have  sometimes  been  betrayed, 
the  great  body  of  the  people  are  patriotic,  conservative,  and 
intelligent  to  a  degree  not  surpassed  elsewhere,  and  seldom 
equalled  among  the  children  of  men. 

The  social  emancipation  of  woman  is.  complete.  The  only 
limitation  upon  her  political  equality  with  man  is  in  the  right  of 
suffrage,  which  is  confined  to  municipal  and  school-district 
elections.  Women  are  exempt  from  jury  duty,  from  military 
service,  and  from  work  upon  the  highways ;  but,  whether  mar 
ried  or  single,  they  can  practice  the  professions,  engage  in  mer 
cantile  business,  follow  any  industry  or  occupation,  and  pursue 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  467 

any  calling,  upon  the  same  conditions  as  men.  The  distinction 
of  sex  is  recognized  only  in  its  natural  sense  and  use.  The  prop 
erty,  real  and  personal,  of  a  single  woman  remains  her  own 
after  marriage,  unless  voluntarily  alienated.  She  can  sue  and 
be  sued  in  her  own  name,  and  her  estate  is  not  liable  for  her 
husband's  debts,  nor  can  the  homestead  be  sold  or  encum 
bered  without  her  conset.  When  the  marriage  is  ended  by 
death,  the  survivor  is  entitled  to  a  moiety  of  the  joint  and  sev 
eral  estate,  with  the  remainder  to  the  children.  Agitation  for 
full  suffrage  is  active,  and  will  undoubtedly  ultimately  prevail. 

The  first  bonds  voted  in  the  State  were  for  school-houses, 
and  the  first  tax  levied  in  every  community,  the  largest  tax, 
and  the  tax  most  cheerfully  paid,  is  the  school  tax.  For  the 
education  of  her  children,  Kansas  has  already  spent  the  enor 
mous  total  of  $40,000,000,  nearly  one-half  the  entire  cost  of 
State  and  municipal  government.  Equal  facilities  are  afforded 
to  whites  and  blacks.  More  than  $21,000,000  are  invested  in 
school-houses,  State  buildings,  lands,  and  other  property  for 
educational  purposes.  The  average  school  year  is  twenty- 
seven  weeks,  supported  by  State,  district,  and  county  taxa 
tion,  amounting  in  1890  to  $5,696,659.69. 

This  magnificent  educational  system  wears  the  triple  crown 
of  the  State  University  at  Lawrence,  with  a  faculty  of  thirty- 
six  members  and  474  students;  the  State  Normal  School  at 
Emporia,  with  a  faculty  of  eighteen  members  and  1,200  stu 
dents  ;  and  the  Agricultural  College  at  Manhattan,  with  an  en 
dowment  from  public  lands  of  $501,426.33,  $15,000  annually 
from  the  Government  as  an  experiment  station,  an  annual 
income  of  $65,000,  a  faculty  of  eighteen  members,  and  575 
students. 


468  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Public  education  is  supplemented  by  private  and  denomi 
national  schools,  with  an  average  yearly  attendance  of  65,000, 
and  buildings  and  endowments  valued  at  two  and  a  quarter 
million  dollars.  Such  efforts  and  sacrifices  have  already  pro 
duced  perceptible  and  gratifying  results.  The  illiterate  frac 
tion  in  Kansas  is  the  smallest  save  one  in  the  Nation.  The 
general  standard  of  intelligence  is  unusually  high.  The  State 
publications  and  reports  are  models  for  imitation,  notably  the 
Biennial  of  the  State  Board  of  Agriculture,  speaking  whereof 
the  London  Times,  in  1880,  said:  "The  resources  the  book 
describes  fill  the  English  mind  with  astonishment  and  envy." 

The  curse  and  bane  of  frontier  life  is  drunkenness.  The 
literature  of  the  mining-camp,  the  cross-roads,  and  the  cattle- 
ranch  reeks  with  whisky.  In  every  new  settlement  the  saloon 
precedes  the  school-house  and  the  church;  is  the  rendezvous 
of  ruffians,  the  harbor  of  criminals,  the  recruiting-station  of  the 
murderer,  the  gambler,  the  harlot,  and  the  thief;  a  perpetual 
menace  to  social  order,  intelligence,  and  morality,  above  whose 
portal  should  be  inscribed  the  legend  engraved  on  the  lintel  of 
the  infernal  gates :  '  "Lasciate  ogni  speranza  voi  ch'  entrate. ' ' 

Agitation  against  the  evils  of  intemperance  was  contem 
porary  with  the  political  organization  of  the  Territory.  The 
founders  of  Topeka  and  Lawrence  forbade  the  sale  of  intox 
icating  beverages  within  their  corporate  limits,  and  the  debate 
continued  until  1881,  when  a  constitutional  amendment  was 
adopted  forever  prohibiting  the  manufacture  and  sale  of  intox 
icating  liquors,  except  for  medicinal,  mechanical,  and  scientific 
purposes.  This  was  enforced  by  appropriate  legislation,  and 
the  validity  of  the  amendment  and  of  the  statutes  was  sus 
tained  by  the  Supreme  Courts  of  the  State  and  of  the  Nation. 
After  futile  and  costly  resistance,  the  dramshop  traffic  has 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  469 

disappeared  from  the  State.  Surreptitious  sales  continue; 
club  drinking  and  "joints"  are  not  unknown;  but  the  saloon 
has  vanished,  and  the  law  has  been  better  enforced  than  similar 
legislation  elsewhere.  In  the  larger  towns  prohibition  is  not  so 
strictly  observed  as  in  the  rural  districts,  where  public  opinion 
is  more  rigid;  but  in  all  localities  the  beneficent  results  are 
apparent  in  the  diminution  of  crime,  poverty,  and  disorder. 
Banned  by  law,  the  occupation  is  stigmatized,  and  becomes 
disreputable.  If  the  offender  avoids  punishment,  he  does 
not  escape  contempt.  Drinking  being  in  secret,  temptation  is 
diminished,  the  weak  are  protected  from  their  infirmities,  and 
the  young  from  their  appetites  and  passions. 

Much  of  the  prominence  of  Kansas  is  due  to  the  novel  and 
startling  methods  employed  by  its  journalists  to  invite  public 
attention  to  the  opportunities  found  here  for  success  and  hap 
piness.  They  have  been  the  persistent  and  conspicuous  advo 
cates  of  immigration,  railroads,  schools,  churches,  manufacto 
ries,  and  improvements. 

The  first  printing-press  was  brought  by  Jotham  Meeker  in 
1833  to  Shawnee  Mission,  a  station  of  the  Methodist  Church, 
established  in  what  is  now  Johnson  County,  in  1829.  Upon  its 
primitive  platen  were  printed  religious  books,  pamphlets,  tracts, 
and  a  newspaper  in  the  Indian  tongue,  in  a  region  then  more 
remote  and  inaccessible  than  Alaska  now.  This  venerable  relic, 
after  nearly  sixty  years  of  service,  is  still  on  duty  in  one  of 
the  southern  counties  of  the  State.  The  first  newspaper  in 
the  Territory  was  the  I^eavenworth  Herald,  printed  in  the  open 
air  under  an  elm- tree  on  the  levee  of  the  city  of  that  name.  It 
has  been  succeeded  by  a  swarming  multitude  of  original,  inge 
nious,  and  brilliant  ventures  in  journalism,  magazines,  reviews, 
periodicals,  papers,  daily  and  weekly,  varying  in  excellence^ 


470  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

but  united  in  vociferous  and  persistent  affirmation  that  Kansas 
is  the  best  State  in  the  most  glorious  country  on  the  finest  planet 
in  the  solar  system;  that  its  soil  is  the  richest,  its  climate  the 
most  salubrious,  its  men  the  most  enterprising,  its  women  the 
most  beautiful,  its  children  the  most  docile,  its  horses  the  fast 
est,  its  cattle  the  largest,  its  sheep  the  woolliest,  its  hogs  the 
fattest,  its  grasshoppers  the  most  beneficent,  its  blizzards  the 
warmest,  its  cyclones  the  mildest,  its  droughts  the  wettest,  its 
hot  winds  the  coldest,  its  past  the  most  glorious,  its  present  the 
most  prophetic,  its  destiny  the  most  sublime. 

They  remind  the  bewildered  reader  of  the  feat  of  the  Hindoo 
necromancer  who  throws  a  ball  of  cord  into  the  air,  catches  the 
depending  end,  and,  climbing  hand  over  hand,  disappears  in 
the  blue  abyss  of  the  sky.  Their  versatile  and  extravagant 
spirit  appears  in  the  extraordinary  nomenclature  which  serves 
to  attract  the  attention  of  the  searcher  after  truth.  Among 
them  may  be  found  The  Thomas  (County)  Cat,  The  Wano  Rus 
tler,  The  Paralyzer,  The  Cherokee  Cyclone,  The  Cimarron  Sod 
House,  The  Lake  City  Prairie  Dog,  The  Bazoo,  The  Lucifer,  The 
Prairie  Owl,  The  Kincaid  Knuckle,  The  Bundle  of  Sticks,  The 
Cap-Sheaf,  The  Dodge  City  Cowboy. 

The  newspapers  have  been  the  advance  agents  of  civiliza 
tion,  often  the  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness.  They 
have  reversed  the  ancient  order,  and  instead  of  waiting  for 
subscribers  and  advertisers,  they  have  been  the  sappers  and 
miners  of  the  assault  upon  the  solitudes  of  Nature.  The  moral 
tone  of  the  press  is  exceptionally  pure,  its  intellectual  plane 
unusually  elevated;  it  is  generous  in  the  treatment  of  public 
men,  just  in  the  criticism  of  opponents,  broad  and  liberal  in 
views  of  State  and  national  policy  and  administration. 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  471 

The  hunger  and  thirst  for  knowledge,  which  has  created  and 
in  turn  is  stimulated  by  the  press,  has  a  wider  scope,  and  the 
people  are  omnivorous  readers  of  metropolitan  journals  and 
leading  periodicals.  With  the  church  and  the  school  have  been 
established  great  numbers  of  public  and  private  libraries,  so 
that  religion,  learning,  and  literature  have  become  the  moving 
forces  of  every  community.  The  State  Library  and  the  col 
lection  of  the  State  Historical  Society  at  the  capital,  and  the 
public  libraries  in  other  localities,  are  richer  and  larger  than 
those  of  many  of  the  older  States.  % 

The  venerable  jest,  that  there  is  no  Sunday  west  of  the  Mis 
sissippi,  is  not  entirely  jocular.  It  has  a  suggestion  of  truth. 
The  same  influence  which  makes  men  indifferent  to  the  past 
renders  them  careless  also  of  the  future.  Ambition  and  cupid 
ity  are  the  ruling  passions  in  new  communities,  and  the  chief  end 
of  man  is  not  to  glorify  God  and  enjoy  Him  forever,  but  to 
make  money  and  run  for  office.  The  concern  for  this  world  is 
much  greater  than  for  that  which  is  to  come.  Religion  is  con 
servative.  It  stands  upon  authority,  and  demands  obedience. 
The  pioneer  is  radical,  impatient  of  dogmas,  and  a  "kicker"  by 
instinct.  He  detests  bigots,  hypocrites,  and  fossils.  His  mind 
being  inquisitive,  its  tendency  is  toward  materialism  and  ration 
alism  rather  than  faith.  He  is  not  disturbed  by  anathemas, 
and  with  composure  hears  himself  described  as  an  agnostic; 
but  he  is  reverent,  tolerant,  and  devout.  He  recognizes  relig 
ion  as  one  of  the  great  beneficent  forces  of  the  universe,  an  indis 
pensable  premise  in  the  syllogism  of  human  destiny,  without 
which  society  would  be  a  sophism,  and  the  soul  of  man  a  fallacy, 
Kansas  attests  her  convictions  by  4,000  church  organizations, 
representing  every  denomination,  with  an  aggregate  member- 


472  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ship  of  nearly  317,000,  having  2,339  houses  of  worship,  and 
property  valued  at  about  $9,000,000. 

The  first  railroad  track  in  Kansas  was  laid  March  20,  1860, 
on  the  Klwood  and  Marysville  line,  opposite  the  city  of  St. 
Joseph.  On  the  23d  of  April  the  "Albany,"  a  pioneer  locomo 
tive,  a  veteran  which  had  been  used  from  Boston  to  the  Mis 
souri  as  railroads  advanced  across  the  continent,  was  ferried 
over  the  river,  and  drew  the  first  train  on  the  first  section  of 
the  Pacific  Railroad.  Construction  ceased  with  the  breaking 
out  of  the  war,  £>ut  was  resumed  with  great  vigor  at  its  close. 
Stimulated  by  liberal  donations  from  cities,  towns,  and  coun 
ties,  railroad-building  became  a  mania,  with  disastrous  results. 
In  addition  to  the  great  trunk  lines  through  populous  and  pro 
ductive  regions,  subsidiary  branches,  unnecessary  auxiliaries, 
and  superfluous  feeders  were  built,  without  earning  capacity, 
burdening  communities  with  irretrievable  self-imposed  debts, 
absorbing  the  revenues  of  those  which  were  remunerative,  giv 
ing  poor  service,  and  rapidly  deteriorating  from  neglect  and 
poverty. 

In  August,  1863,  the  grading  of  the  Kansas  Pacific  Railroad 
was  begun  at  the  State  line  between  Kansas  and  Missouri,  in 
the  dense  forest  of  cottonwoods  that  then  shaded  the  site  of 
what  has  since  become  a  populous  suburb  of  one  of  the  great 
cities  of  the  West.  The  contractor  erected  at  the  initial  point 
a  pillar,  inscribing  on  the  face  towards  the  east  "Slavery," 
and  on  the  face  towards  the  west  "Freedom."  This  line  was 
completed  to  Lawrence  in  November,  1864,  but  the  first  forty 
miles  were  not  accepted  by  the  Government  until  October,  1865. 

There  are  now  109  railroad  companies  in  the  State,  many 
of  them  consolidated,  with  more  than  10,000  miles  of  track, 
assessed  at  $50,865,825.34.  Of  the  106  counties,  all  but  five 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  473 

are  traversed  by  railroads,  and  the  traveler  entering  a  Santa 
Fe  train  at  Atchison  can,  within  a  week,  in  a  Pullman  car, 
reach  the  city  of  Mexico  over  almost  the  identical  route  fol 
lowed  by  Coronado  in  his  expedition  three  hundred  and  fifty 
years  ago. 

This  great  corporation,  chartered  in  1857  and  permanently 
organized  in  1864,  was  not  operated  until  1869,  and  then  only 
as  a  local  line  from  Topeka  to  the  Osage  coal-fields,  thirty  miles 
southwest.  Its  land  grant  was  considered  of  doubtful  value, 
and  capitalists  looked  askant  upon  the  project  of  constructing 
a  railroad  along  the  unpeopled  sands  of  the  Arkansas  Valley, 
which  were  still  the  grazing-ground  of  the  buffalo  and  the  hunt 
ing-ground  of  the  savage.  The  site  of  Wichita,  alliteratively 
described  by  M.  M.  Murdock,  its  prophet  and  herald,  as  "the 
peerless  princess  of  the  plains,"  with  its  palaces,  temples, 
marts,  electric  lights,  and  railways,  water- works,  elevators, 
flouring-mills,  and  packing-houses,  had  not  been  traced  among 
the  whispering  reeds  and  scattered  cottonwoods  of  the  mead 
ows  bordering  on  the  American  Nile.  The  sub-irrigation 
which  makes  the  corn  and  wheat  crops  independent  of  the 
rainfall,  had  not  been  discovered.  The  fertility  of  the  loose 
and  shifting  soil  was  not  suspected,  and  the  vast  region  seemed 
doomed  to  perpetual  solitude  and  sterility. 

Some  bolder  spirits,  gifted  with  the  prescience  essential  to 
great  designs,  foresaw  the  future,  and  sent  the  surveyors  and 
graders,  the  advance  guard  of  civilization,  into  the  desert. 
Contemporaneously  with  construction,  they  advertised  the 
lands  and  the  State,  sending  agents  to  all  parts  of  the  Union 
and  to  every  country  in  Europe,  penetrating  Russia  to  the 
Crimea;  inviting  immigration;  selling  farms  at  low  rates  on 
long  time;  extending  payments  and  giving  aid  in  time  of  dis- 


474  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

tress;  exhibiting  the  productions  of  orchards  and  farms ;  bring 
ing  harvest-home  excursions  from  other  States;  distributing 
maps,  pamphlets,  and  statistical  tables  as  numerous  and  as 
chromatic  colored  as  autumnal  leaves.  Similar  methods,  al 
though  not  as  extensive  nor  as  liberal,  were  employed  by  the 
managers  of  the  Missouri  Pacific,  Fort  Scott  and  Gulf,  the 
Union  Pacific,  and  other  trunk  lines,  under  the  stimulus  of 
which  lands  rapidly  advanced  in  value,  and  much  that  was 
sold  at  from  three  to  five  dollars  is  now  worth  as  high  as  one 
hundred  dollars  per  acre. 

The  farms  of  Kansas  were  not  made  to  order.  They  waited 
for  the  plough.  There  were  no  forests  to  fell,  no  stumps  to 
extract,  no  rocks  to  remove,  no  malaria  to  combat.  These 
undulating  fields  are  the  floors  of  ancient  seas.  These  lime 
stone  ledges  underlying  the  prairies  and  cropping  from  the 
foreheads  of  the  hills  are  the  cemeteries  of  the  marine  insect 
life  of  the  primeval  world.  The  inexhaustible  humus  is  the 
mould  of  the  decaying  herbage  of  unnumbered  centuries.  It 
is  only  upon  calcareous  plains  in  temperate  latitudes  that 
agriculture  is  supreme,  and  the  strong  structure  and  the  rich 
nourishment  imparted  essential  to  bulk,  endurance,  and  speed 
in  animals,  to  grace,  beauty,  and  passion  in  women,  and  in 
man  to  stature,  courage,  health,  and  longevity. 

Here  are  valleys  in  which  a  furrow  can  be  ploughed  a  hun 
dred  miles  long;  where  all  the  labor  of  breaking,  planting, 
cultivating,  mowing,  reaping,  and  harvesting  is  performed  by 
horses,  engines,  and  machinery,  so  that  farming  has  become  a 
sedentary  occupation.  The  lister  has  supplanted  the  hoe; 
the  cradle,  the  scythe,  and  the  sickle  are  as  unknown  to  West 
ern  agriculture  as  the  catapult  and  culverin  to  modern  warfare. 
The  well-sweep  and  windlass  have  been  supplanted  by  the 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  475 

windmills,  whose  vivacious  disks  disturb  the  monotony  of 
the  sky.  But  for  these  labor-saving  inventions  the  pioneers 
would  still  linger  in  the  valleys  of  the  Ohio  and  Sangamon, 
and  the  subjugation  of  the  desert  would  have  been  indefinitely 
postponed. 

The  ozone  of  the  air,  its  dryness,  and  the  elevation  of  the 
land  produce  nervous  exaltation,  which  creates  enthusiasm, 
movement,  energy,  push,  vigor,  and  "go" ;  by  whose  operation 
men  are  transformed  into  "rustlers"  and  "boomers,"  inventors 
of  new  methods  to  overcome  the  hostility  of  Nature,  and  coiners 
of  novel  phrases  to  express  their  defiance  of  destiny.  Plati 
tudes  are  unknown,  and  all  epithets  are  superlative.  Imagin 
ation  predominates ;  established  formulas  and  maxims  are  dis 
regarded.  Upon  the  rainless  and  sterile  uplands  the  strata  of 
the  earth  are  pierced  for  water;  and  marble,  paint,  cement, 
fire-clay,  gypsum,  coal,  and  salt  are  discovered  in  the  descent. 
If  chinch-bugs  and  noxious  insects  attack  his  crops,  parasites 
and  epidemics  are  imported  for  their  destruction.  Foiled  and 
thwarted  by  the  baffling  clouds,  the  undaunted  husbandman 
bombards  the  invisible  moisture  of  the  firmament  with  explos 
ive  balloons,  and  effusively  welcomes  the  meteorological  juggler 
who  summons  with  his  incantations  aqueous  spirits  from  the 
vasty  deep.  The  faith  which  removes  mountains  into  the  sea 
animates  every  citizen,  and  rejects  the  impossible  with  calm 
disdain. 

The  present  wealth  of  Kansas,  real  and  personal,  reaches 
the  astounding  aggregate  of  nearly  seventeen  hundred  million 
dollars* — many  times  more  than  the  valuation  of  all  the  States 
in  the  Union  when  the  Government  was  established,  after  one 


*Extra  Census  Bulletin  No.  14,  October,  1891. 


476  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

hundred  and  fifty  years  of  colonial  existence.  This  enormous 
accumulation  nominally  represents  a  period  of  forty  years,  but 
has  actually  been  created  in  much  less,  for  life  in  Kansas  from 
1854  to  1865  was  a  bivouac,  and  the  real  development  of  the 
State  did  not  begin  until  peace  was  restored.  Twenty  years 
ago  half  its  area  was  pastured  by  buffalo,  and  a  considerable 
part  was  covered  by  the  reservations  of  hostile  Indians,  whose 
depredations  continued  until  1880,  resulting  in  more  than  two 
hundred  deaths,  or  captivities  less  merciful  than  the  grave, 
and  the  expenditure  of  millions  for  the  defense  of  the  frontier. 

Even  as  late  as  1875,  agriculture  beyond  the  Blue  was  re 
garded  by  many  as  an  uncertain  and  by  some  as  a  desperate 
experiment.  Nature  appeared  to  resent  the  invasion  of  her 
solitudes.  The  horrors  of  internecine  war  were  followed  by  a 
succession  of  droughts  and  hot  winds,  that,  in  turn,  were  re 
inforced  by  swarms  of  locusts,  which  descended  from  the  torrid 
mesas  of  New  Mexico  and  the  sterile  Piedmont  of  Colorado  and 
Wyoming,  obscuring  the  pitiless  sun  by  their  desolating  flights, 
leaving  the  earth  they  devastated  defiled  by  their  loathsome 
exuviae,  and  poisoning  the  atmosphere  with  the  foetor  of  their 
decay.  It  was  like  the  incarnation  of  Nature's  secret  and  evil 
forces,  as  if  the  bacilli  and  microbes  of  "the  pestilence  that 
walketh  in  darkness  and  the  destruction  that  wasteth  at 
noonday"  had  become  visible,  endowed  with  wings,  malignant 
intelligence,  and  insatiable  voracity. 

That  the  State  survived  the  infliction  of  this  series  of  dis 
asters  seems  incredible.  A  people  less  sanguine,  buoyant,  and 
resolute,  more  unschooled  in  the  lessons  of  adversity,  would 
have  succumbed.  They  would  have  surrendered  uncondition 
ally,  and  abandoned  their  parched  fields  and  farms  to  the  coy 
ote  and  the  prairie-dog.  But  the  malevolent  energies  of  the 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  477 

desert,  having  been  marshalled  for  this  final  onset,  were  repulsed 
by  an  indomitable  persistence  superior  to  their  own,  and  sul 
lenly  withdrew.  While  envious  rivals  were  jeering,  and  jeal 
ous  competitors  were  flouting,  pointing  with  scorn's  slow, 
unmoving  finger  at  the  droughts,  grasshoppers,  hot  winds, 
crop  failures,  and  other  calamities  of  Kansas,  the  world  was 
suddenly  startled  and  dazzled  by  her  collective  display  of  horti 
cultural  and  agricultural  products  at  the  Centennial  at  Phila 
delphia,  which  received  the  highest  awards.  Since  that  time 
there  has  been  no  arena  in  Europe  or  America  in  which  Kansas 
has  declined  competition,  and  at  the  New  Orleans  Exposition, 
in  1885,  she  took  sixty-five  first  and  second  premiums  on  wheat, 
corn,  flour,  sugar,  fruit,  and  cattle,  leading  all  the  States  in  the 
Union. 

This  year  (1891)  the  yield  of  wheat  has  been  58,550,653 
bushels,  nearly  one-tenth  of  the  entire  crop  of  the  country ;  of 
oats,  40,000,000  bushels ;  unfavorable  conditions  have  reduced 
by  one-third  the  average  corn  crop  of  200,000,000  bushels. 
These,  supplemented  with  roots,  sorghum,  broom-corn,  mil 
let,  hay,  rye,  barley,  garden  vegetables,  honey,  and  wine, 
have  enriched  the  farmers  of  Kansas  with  wealth  far  ex 
ceeding  the  year's  yield  of  the  gold  and  silver  mines  of  the 
United  States.  The  total  aggregate  value  of  all  farm  prod 
ucts  for  the  years  1889  and  1890  was  $283,740,491,  and  that  of 
the  present  biennial,  judging  by  the  previous  rate  of  increase, 
will  exceed  $300,000,000. 

The  courage,  sand,  and  grit  of  the  people,  their  nervy  faith 
in  fortune,  the  confidence  of  capitalists  in  the  staple  value  of 
Kansas  lands  and  in  the  industry  and  integrity  of  their  owners, 
have  marvellous  illustration  in  the  fact  that  during  the  ten 
years  between  1880  and  1890  a  recorded  real-estate  mortgage 


478  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

indebtedness  was  incurred  of  nearly  five  hundred  million  dol 
lars,  exclusive  of  loans  upon  chattels,  State  and  railroad  land 
contracts,  personal  liabilities,  city,  township,  and  county  sub 
sidies  for  railways  and  other  public  objects,  aggregating  prob 
ably  two  hundred  millions  more.  This  feverish  period  culmi 
nated  in  a  delirium  of  public  and  private  credit  known  in  local 
history  as  "the  boom  of  1887,"  whose  frenzy  and  disaster  have 
not  been  exceeded  since  the  bursting  of  the  "Mississippi  bub 
ble,'  or  the  collapse  of  the  " tulipomania "  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 

The  building  of  superfluous  towns,  the  construction  of 
unnecessary  railroads,  the  organization  of  counties  and  the 
location  of  county  seats ;  the  entry  of  public  lands  for  the  sole 
purpose  of  mortgaging  the  inchoate  title  at  excessive  valua 
tions,  became  established  industries.  The  agents  of  Eastern 
companies  eagerly  competed  for  the  privilege  of  placing  loans 
upon  quarter-sections  without  a  fence  or  furrow,  often  far 
beyond  their  market  value.  Professional  "boomers,"  with  a 
retinue  of  surveyors  and  cappers  and  strikers,  invaded  the 
State,  bought  and  platted  additions,  which  they  sold  at  exor 
bitant  prices  to  resident  and  foreign  speculators,  victims  to  the 
epidemic  passion  for  sudden  wealth,  whose  inexplicable  con 
tagion  infected  the  reason  of  men  with  its  undetected  bacteria. 

The  reaction  came  like  the  "next  morning"  after  a  night  of 
revelry  and  debauch.  The  plunderers  disappeared  with  the 
ready  money  of  the  people,  leaving,  instead  of  anticipated 
wealth,  an  intolerable  burden  of  maturing  indebtedness  upon 
deluded  purchasers.  Empty  railroad  trains  ran  across  deserted 
prairies  to  vacant  towns.  Successive  droughts  and  siroccos 
destroyed  the  crops  in  the  western  half  of  the  State.  The 
laborers,  mechanics,  and  speculators,  having  erected  costly 


KANSAS:     1541 — 1891.  479 

business  blocks  that  found  no  tenants,  and  residences  that  re 
mained  uninhabited,  being  without  further  occupation,  sought 
employment  elsewhere.  The  population  declined.  Pay-day 
came.  The  coupon  matured.  Taxes  fell  due.  Creditors  be 
came  clamorous.  Merchants  refused  credit,  and  public  and 
private  treasuries  were  depleted. 

These  accumulated  misfortunes  were  supplemented  in  1890 
by  an  irruption  of  false  teachers,  with  the  instruction  that  such 
disasters  were  the  result  of  vicious  legislation,  and  could  be 
cured  by  statute;  that  banks  should  be  destroyed,  debts  repu 
diated,  property  forcibly  redistributed,  and  poverty  abolished 
by  act  of  Congress.  It  was  an  exhibition  of  what  Burke 
described  as  the  ' '  insanity  of  nations. ' '  Conservative,  thought 
ful,  and  patriotic  men  yielded  to  an  uncontrollable  impulse  of 
resentment  against  society.  This  outburst  shocked  the  public 
credit,  temporarily  destroyed  the  ability  of  the  debtor  to  bor 
row  or  to  pay,  diminished  the  value  of  property,  and  inflicted  an 
irremediable  wound  upon  the  State's  good  name.  But  it  van 
ished  like  one  of  the  ominous  and  sudden  catastrophes  of  the 
sky.  With  the  return  of  prosperity  came  the  restoration  of 
reason.  More  than  half  the  enormous  indebtedness  has  already 
been  liquidated,  and  the  whole  will  be  honestly  and  resolutely 
paid.  A  Kansas  loan  is  as  secure  as  a  Government  bond. 

The  Arabs  say  that  he  who  drinks  of  the  Nile  must  always 
thirst;  no  other  waters  can  quench  or  satisfy.  So  those  who 
have  done  homage  and  taken  the  oath  of  fealty  to  Kansas  can 
never  be  alienated  or  forsworn.  The  love  of  the  people  for 
their  State  is  not  so  much  a  vague  sentiment  as  an  insatiable 
passion,  The  anniversary  of  its  admission  is  observed  by  the 
schools  as  a  festival  and  holiday,  with  commemorative  exer 
cises.  Days  are  set  apart  in  spring,  by  executive  proclamation, 


480  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

to  decorate  the  hills  and  roadsides  with  trees,  as  a  lover  adorns 
his  bride  with  jewels.  The  defects  of  climate  and  the  disasters 
of  husbandry  are  indulgently  explained  and  excused  as  the 
foibles  of  a  friend  from  whom  better  things  may  be  anticipated 
hereafter.  The  wanderers  whom  caprice  or  misfortune  may 
temporarily  banish  are  recalled  by  an  irresistible  solicitation 
as  they  remember  the  bright  aspect  of  its  sky,  which  is  like  a 
smile,  and  the  soft  touch  of  its  atmosphere,  which  is  like  a 
caress. 

The  cross  which  Coronado  reared  at  the  verge  of  his  wan 
derings  long  since  mouldered,  and  the  ashes  of  the  adventurer 
have  slept  for  ages  in  their  ancestral  sepulchre  in  Spain.  He 
found  neither  Quivera's. phantom  towers  nor  Cibola's  gems  and 
gold ;  but  a  fairer  capital  than  that  he  sought  to  despoil  has  risen 
like  an  exhalation  from  the  solitude  he  trod,  and  richer  treasure 
than  he  craved  has  rewarded  the  toilers  of  an  alien  race.  Upon 
their  effulgent  shield  shines  a  star  emerging  from  stormy  clouds 
to  the  constellation  of  the  Union,  and  beneath  they  have  writ 
ten,  llAd  astra  per  aspera,"  an  emblem  of  the  past,  by  whose 
contemplation  they  are  exalted,  the  prophecy  of  that  nobler 
future  to  which  they  confidently  aspire. 


"AD  ASTRA  PER  ASPERA." 


Ex-Senator  Ingalls,  enclosing  a  clipping  from  a  Kansas 
newspaper,  writes  from  Tucson,  Arizona,  to  the  Mail  and  Breeze, 
as  follows: 

"John  Speer,  of  Lawrence,  in  speaking  of  the  report  that  John  J. 
Ingalls  had  plagiarized  the  Kansas  motto,  'Ad  astra  per  aspgra,'  says: 
'I  never  knew  until  this  scramble  came  up  that  there  was  any  dispute  that 
Josiah  Miller,  of  Lawrence,  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  State  Seal  in  the 
first  Kansas  Legislature,  was  the  author  of  the  phrase.  It  has  always 
been  attributed  to  him,  and  years  ago,  when  he  died,  this  motto  was  cut 
on  the  stone  on  his  grave.  Ingalls  was  clerk  of  that  committee,  but  I  never 
heard  before  that  he  claimed  the  authorship  of  the  motto.  I  remember 
that  Miller  once  told  me  how  delighted  he  was  when  he  hit  on  the  motto.' 
"I  was  Secretary  of  the  Senate,  not  clerk  of  Miller's  committee.  The 
motto  is  as  old  as  Josephus;  it  may  be  found  in  any  Latin  phrase-book  and 
the  appendix  to  all  dictionaries.  It  is  one  of  the  commonest  mottoes  in 
heraldry,  and  is  borne,  I  suppose,  by  a  hundred  families  in  England  with 
their  coat-of-arms.  The  first  time  I  ever  saw  it  was  on  an  old  brass  seal 
in  Haverhill,  Mass.,  in  1857.  The  same  thought  is  expressed  in  many  dif 
ferent  ways;  but  'Ad  astra  per  aspera'  seemed  the  most  melodious,  and  so 
I  selected  it  for  my  sketch.  With  a  motto  as  with  a  proverb,  the  question 
is  not  whether  it  is  original,  but  whether  it  is  appropriate.  I  remember 
Judge  Miller  well,  and  am  glad  to  know  from  Mr.  Speer  that  he  is  the 
author  of  the  phrase.  He  must  have  been  an  older  man  than  I  supposed. 

"JOHN  J,  INGALLS. 
"Tucson,  May  18,  1900." 

It  is  also  of  interest  to  note  in  this  connection  that  Mr. 
Ingalls  suggested  the  original  design  for  the  great  seal  of  Kan 
sas  upon  the  admission  of  the  State  into  the  Union,  together 
with  the  motto,  "Ad  astra  per  aspera"  ("To  the  stars  through 
difficulties").  Unfortunately,  however,  the  beauty  and  sim- 

48i 


482  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

plicity  of  his  original  design  were  marred  by  the  committee 
to  whom  it  was  submitted  for  adoption.  «Xhe  history  of  this 
emblematic  device  can  best  be  given  in  ex-Senator  Ingalls' 
own  characteristic  words: 

"I  was  Secretary  of  the  Kansas  State  Senate  at  its  first  session  after 
our  admission  in  1861.  A  joint  committeee  was  appointed  to  present  a 
design  for  the  great  seal  of  the  State,  and  I  suggested  a  sketch  embracing 
a  single  star  rising  from  the  clouds  at  the  base  of  a  field,  with  the  con 
stellation  (representing  the  number  of  States  then  in  the  Union)  above, 
accompanied  by  the  motto,  'Ad  astro,  per  aspera.' 

"If  you  will  examine  the  seal  as  it  now  exists,  you  will  see  that  my 
idea  was  adopted;  but,  in  addition  thereto,  the  committee  incorporated  a 
mountain  scene,  a  river  view,  a  herd  of  buffalo  chased  by  Indians  on  horse 
back,  a  log-cabin,  with  a  settler  plowing  in  the  foreground,  together  with 
a  number  of  other  incongruous,  allegorical,  and  metaphorical  augmenta 
tions,  which  destroyed  the  beauty  and  simplicity  of  my  design. 

"The  clouds  at  the  base  were  intended  to  represent  the  perils  and 
troubles  of  our  Territorial  history;  the  star  emerging  therefrom,  the  new 
State ;  the  constellation,  like  that  on  the  flag,  the  Union,  to  which,  after  a 
stormy  struggle,  it  had  been  admitted." 


KANSAS. 


Kansas  is  the  navel  of  the  Nation. 

Diagonals  drawn  from  Duluth  to  Galveston,  from  Wash 
ington  to  San  Francisco,  from  Tallahassee  to  Olympia,  from 
Sacramento  to  Augusta,  intersect  at  its  centre. 

Kansas  is  the  nucleus  of  our  political  system,  around  which 
forces  assemble,  to  which  its  energies  converge,  and  from 
which  its  energies  radiate  to  the  remotest  circumference. 

Kansas  is  the  focus  of  freedom,  where  the  rays  of  heat  and 
light  concentrated  into  a  flame  that  melted  the  manacles  of 
the  slave  and  cauterized  the  heresies  of  State  sovereignty  and 
disunion. 

Kansas  is  the  core  and  kernel  of  the  country,  containing 
the  germs  of  its  growth  and  the  quickening  ideas  essential  to 
its  perpetuity. 

The  history  of  Kansas  is  written  in  capitals.  It  is  punctu 
ated  with  exclamation  points.  Its  verbs  are  imperative.  Its 
adjectives  are  superlative.  The  commonplace  and  prosaic  are 
not  denned  in  its  lexicon.  Its  statistics  can  be  stated  onlv  in 
the  language  of  hyperbole. 

The  aspiration  of  Kansas  is  to  reach  the  unattainable;  its 
dream  is  the  realization  of  the  impossible.  Alexander  wept 
because  there  were  no  more  worlds  to  conquer.  Kansas,  hav 
ing  vanquished  all  competitors,  smiles  complacently  as  she 
surpasses  from  year  to  year  her  own  triumphs  in  growth  and 

483 


484  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

glory.  Other  States  could  be  spared  with  irreparable  bereave 
ment,  but  Kansas  is  indispensable  to  the  joy,  the  inspiration, 
and  the  improvement  of  the  world. 

It  seems  incredible  that  there  was  a  time  when  Kansas 
did  not  exist;  when  its  name  was  not  written  on  the  map 
of  the  United  States;  when  the  Kansas  cyclone,  the  Kansas 
grass-hopper,  the  Kansas  boom,  and  the  Kansas  Utopia  were 
unknown. 

I  was  a  student  in  the  Junior  class  at  Williams  College  when 
President  Pierce,  forgotten  but  for  that  signature,  approved 
the  act  establishing  the  Territory  of  Kansas,  May  30,  1854.  I 
remember  the  inconceivable  agitation  that  preceded,  accom 
panied,  and  followed  this  event.  It  was  an  epoch.  Destiny 
closed  one  volume  of  our  annals,  and,  opening  another,  traced 
with  shadowy  finger  upon  its  pages  a  million  epitaphs,  ending 
with  "Appomattox." 

Kansas  was  the  prologue  to  a  tragedy  whose  epilogue  has 
not  yet  been  pronounced;  the  prelude  to  a  fugue  of  battles 
whose  reverberations  have  not  yet  died  away. 

Floating  one  summer  night  upon  a  moonlit  sea,  I  heard  far 
over  the  still  waters  a  high,  clear  voice  singing: 

"  To  the  West !     To  the  West !     To  the  land  of  the  free, 
Where  the  mighty  Missouri  rolls  down  to  the  sea ; 
Where  a  man  is  a  man  if  he  's  willing  to  toil, 
And  the  humblest  may  gather  the  fruits  of  the  soil." 

A  few  days  later,  my  studies  being  completed,  I  joined  the 
uninterrupted  and  resistless  column  of  volunteers  that  marched 
to  the  land  of  the  free.  St.  Louis  was  a  squalid  border  town, 
the  outpost  of  civilization.  The  railroad  ended  at  Jefferson 
City.  Transcontinental  trains,  with  sleepers  and  dining-cars, 


KANSAS.  485 

annihilating  space  and  time,  were  the  vague  dream  of  the 
future  century. 

Overtaking  at  Hermann  a  fragile  steamer  that  had  left  her 
levee  the  day  before,  we  embarked  upon  a  monotonous  voyage 
of  four  days  along  the  treacherous  and  tortuous  channel  that 
crawled,  between  forest  and  cottonwood  and  barren  bars  of 
tawny  sand,  to  the  frontier  of  the  American  Desert. 

It  was  the  mission  of  the  pioneer  with  his  plough  to  abolish 
the  frontier  and  to  subjugate  the  desert.  One  has  become  a 
boundary  and  the  other  an  oasis.  But  with  so  much  acquisi 
tion,  something  has  been  lost  for  which  there  is  no  compensa 
tion  or  equivalent.  He  is  unfortunate  who  has  never  felt  the 
fascination  of  the  frontier;  the  temptation  of  unknown  and 
mysterious  solitudes;  the  exultation  of  helping  to  build  a 
State;  of  forming  its  institutions,  and  giving  direction  to  its 
career. 

Kansas,  in  its  rudimentary  stage,  extended  west  six  hun 
dred  and  fifty-eight  miles  to  the  crest  of  the  Rocky  Mountains, 
the  eastern  boundary  of  Utah.  By  subsequent  amputation 
and  curtailment  it  was  shorn  to  its  present  narrow  limits  of 
fifty-two  million  acres;  three  thousand  square  miles  in  excess 
of  the  entire  area  of  New  England.  Denver,  Manitou,  Pueblo, 
Pike's  Peak,  and  Cripple  Creek  are  among  the  treasures  which 
the  State-makers  of  1859,  like  the  base  Indian  richer  than  all 
his  tribe,  threw  unconsciously  away. 

Thirty  years  ago,  along  the  eastern  margin  of  the  grassy 
quadrangle  which  geographers  called  Kansas,  the  rude  fore 
fathers  of  Atchison,  Leavenworth,  Wyandotte,  Lawrence,  and 
Topeka  slept  in  the  intervals  of  their  strife  with  the  pet 
ty  tyrants  of  their  fields,  and  beyond  their  western  horizon 
the  rest  was  silence,  solitude,  and  the  wilderness,  to  the  Rio 


486  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

Grande,  to  the  Yellowstone,  to  the  Sierra  Nevada ;  like  the  lone 
ly  steppes  of  Turkestan  and  Tartary ;  inhabited  by  wandering 
tribes  whose  occupation  was  war,  whose  pastime  was  the  chase ; 
pastured  for  untold  centuries  by  the  roaming  herds  that  fol 
lowed  the  seasons  in  their  recurring  migrations  from  the  Arctic 
Circle  to  the  Gulf. 

It  has  been  sometimes  obscurely  intimated  that  the  typical 
Kansan  lacks  in  reserve,  and  occasionally  exhibits  a  tendency 
to  exaggeration  in  dwelling  upon  the  development  of  the  State 
and  the  benefits  and  burdens  of  its  citizenship.  Censorious 
scoffers,  actuated  by  envy,  jealousy,  malignity,  and  other  evil 
passions,  have  hinted  that  he  unduly  vaunteth  himself ;  that  he 
brags  and  becomes  vainglorious;  that  he  is  given  to  bounce, 
tall  talk,  and  magniloquence. 

There  have  not  been  wanting  those  who  affirm  that  he 
magnifies  his  calamities  as  well  as  his  blessings,  and  desires 
nothing  so  much  as  to  have  the  name  of  Kansas  in  any  capac 
ity  always  in  the  ears  and  mouths  of  men. 

Such  accusations  are  well  calculated  to  make  the  judicious 
grieve.  They  result  from  a  misconception  of  the  man  and  his 
environment. 

The  normal  condition  of  the  genuine  Kansan  is  that  of  shy 
and  sensitive  diffidence.  He  suffers  from  excess  of  modesty. 
He  blushes  too  easily.  There  is  nothing  he  dislikes  so  much 
as  to  hear  himself  talk.  He  hides  his  light  under  a  bushel. 
He  keeps  as  near  the  tail-end  of  the  procession  as  possible. 
He  never  advertises.  He  bloweth  not  his  own  horn,  and  is 
indifferent  to  the  band-wagon. 

He  is  oppressed  by  the  vast  responsibility  of  being  an 
inhabitant  of  a  commonwealth  so  immeasurably  superior  in 


KANSAS.  487 

all  the  elements  of  present  glory,  in  all  the  prophecies  of  future 
renown,  to  his  inferior  companions. 

To  be  a  denizen  of  a  State  that  surpasses  all  other  commu 
nities  as  Niagara  excels  all  other  cataracts,  as  well  as  the  sun 
transcends  all  other  luminaries,  imposes  obligations  that  ren 
der  levity  impossible. 

The  every-day  events  of  Kansas  would  be  marvels  else 
where;  our  platitudes  would  be  panegyrics;  the  trite  and 
commonplace  are  unknown.  It  is  impossible  to  overestimate 
the  value  of  citizenship  in  a  State  that  sent  more  soldiers  into 
the  Union  armies  than  it  had  voters  when  Sumter  fell;  that 
exceeded  all  quotas  without  draft  or  bounty;  that  had  the 
highest  rate  of  mortality  upon  the  field  of  battle.  That  a  State 
so  begotten  and  nurtured  should  be  as  indomitable  in  peace  as 
it  was  invincible  in  war,  was  inevitable.  Its  gestation  was 
heroic.  It  represented  ideas  and  principles;  conscience,  pat 
riotism,  duty;  the  "unconquerable  mind  and  freedom's  holy 
flame." 

No  other  State  encountered  such  formidable  obstacles  of 
Nature  and  Fortune.  Our  disasters  and  catastrophes  have 
been  monumental.  Swarms  of  locusts  eclipsing  the  sun  in 
their  flight,  whose  incredible  voracity  left  the  forests,  and 
the  orchards,  and  the  fields  of  June  as  naked  as  December; 
drouths  changing  the  sky  to  brass  and  the  earth  to  iron ;  siroc 
cos  that  in  a  day  devastated  provinces  and  reduced  thousands 
from  comfort  to  penury — these  and  the  other  destructive 
agencies  of  the  atmosphere  have  been  met  by  a  courage  that 
no  danger  could  daunt,  and  by  a  constancy  unshaken  by 
adversity. 

The  statistics  of  the  census  tables  are  more  eloquent  than 
the  tropes  and  phrases  of  the  rhetorician.  The  story  of  Kansas 


488  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

needs  no  reinrorcement  from  the  imagination.  Its  arithmetic 
is  more  dazzling  than  poetry,  and  the  historian  is  compelled 
to  be  economical  of  truth  and  parsimonious  in  his  recital 
of  facts,  in  order  not  to  impose  too  great  a  strain  upon  the 
capacity  of  human  credulity. 

Notwithstanding  the  mishaps  of  husbandry  and  the  fatali 
ties  of  Nature,  it  is  a  moderate  and  conservative  statement 
that  no  community  ever  increased  so  rapidly  in  population, 
wealth,  and  civilization,  nor  gained  so  great  an  aggregate  in  so 
brief  a  time  as  the  State  of  Kansas.  There  is  no  other  State 
where  the  rewards  of  industry  have  been  so  ample,  and  the 
conditions  of  prosperity  so  abundant,  so  stable,  and  so  secure 
as  here. 

It  is  a  distinctly  American  State,  with  a  trivial  fraction  of 
illiteracy,  the  largest  school  population,  and  but  one  detected 
criminal  to  two  thousand  of  its  inhabitants. 

In  popular  estimation,  Kansas  is  classified  as  an  exclusively 
agricultural  and  pastoral  region.  It  has  harvested  the  largest 
wheat  crop  ever  gathered  in  any  State,  and  will  strive  this  year 
to  break  its  own  record.  In  corn,  fruit,  and  small  grains  com 
putation  and  measurement  have  been  abandoned  as  superflu 
ous  and  impracticable.  But  these  are  only  fragments  of  its 
material  resources. 

Its  fields  of  natural  gas  rival  those  of  Indiana,  Ohio,  and 
Pennsylvania. 

Its  mines  supply  one-fourth  of  the  zinc  and  much  of  the 
lead  of  the  world. 

Its  deposits  of  bituminous  coal  are  inexhaustible. 

Vast  areas  are  underlaid  with  petroleum. 

Its  salt  mines  are  richer  than  those  of  Michigan  or  New 
York. 


KANSAS  489 

Its  treeless  and  unwatered  plains  sent  the  biggest  walnut 
log  to  the  World's  Fair,  and  have  a  subterranean  flow  that  is 
capable  of  irrigating  an  area  more  fertile  and  extensive  than 
the  valley  of  the  Nile.  The  indescribable  beauty  of  the  pal 
aces  of  the  Exposition,  with  their  white  domes  and  pinnacles, 
and  statues  and  colonnades,  and  terraces  and  towers,  came 
from  the  cement  quarries  of  the  Saline  and  Smoky  Hill. 

And  this  is  but  the  dawn.  We  stand  in  the  vestibule  of 
the  temple.  Much  less  than  one-half  the  surface  of  the  State 
has  been  broken  by  the  plough.  Its  resources  have  been 
imperfectly  explored.  It  has  developed  at  random.  Science 
will  hereafter  reinforce  the  energies  of  Nature,  and  the  achieve 
ments  of  the  past  will  pale  into  insignificance  before  the  com 
pleted  glory  of  the  century  to  come. 

Atchison,  May  10,  1896. 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW. 


[The  following  photographic  interview  with  Senator  John 
James  Ingalls,  of  Kansas,  which  was  secured  exclusively  for 
and  appears  exclusively  in  The  Sunday  World,  is  notable  in 
many  respects. 

It  is  the  first  interview  of  the  kind  that  has  ever  appeared 
in  American  journalism.  The  instantaneous  camera  reinforces 
the  stenographer's  pencil  in  a  degree  unknown  before  in  the 
newspapers  or  magazines  of  this  country.  The  reproductions 
of  the'  photographs  give  an  accurate  representation  of  the 
characteristic  attitudes  of  the  Senator  during  the  interview. 

The  subject  matter  of  the  interview  is  in  itself  of  exceptional 
interest.  There  is  not  a  dull  paragraph  in  these  pages.  Sen 
ator  Ingalls'  notable  utterances  as  to  the  continental  future 
of  the  Republic  and  the  coming  empire  of  the  West ;  his  treat 
ment  of  the  present  political  problems ;  his  raps  at  the  Democ 
racy;  estimates  of  Cleveland  and  Harrison;  theories  of  polit 
ical  methods;  observations  on  labor  and  capital,  socialism, 
religion,  and  the  future  of  the  human  race — are  all  of  intense 
interest.  It  is  needless  to  state  that  the  interview  is  packed 
with  bright  epigrams  and  spiced  with  wit,  satire,  and  sarcasm, 
for  everybody,  of  course,  will  read  it  from  beginning  to  end. 

It  is  only  just  to  Senator  Ingalls  to  state  that  this  interview 
was  especially  solicited  by  The  Sunday  World,  and  that  his 


490 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  491 

consent  to  the  experiment  was  obtained  only  after  considerable 
persuasion . — EDITOR  .] 

"INGALLS  Is  GOING  TO  SPEAK." 

Senator  John  James  Ingalls,  of  Kansas,  is  one  of  the  most 
prominent  and,  in  some  respects,  the  most  interesting  man  in 
public  life.  He  may  have  trodden  the  pathway  of  error  ever 
so  much ;  his  public  acts  may  have  been  liable  to  adverse  crit 
icism;  his  sayings  may  have  been  at  times  misleading,  incon 
sistent  and  wrong,  but  they  have  always  been  vigorous  and 
epigrammatic. 

He  is  incapable  of  expressing  a  thought  in  a  commonplace 
way  or  of  saying  a  dull  thing.  And  that  is  why  The  World 
asked  him  to  submit  to  a  photographic-interviewing  process, 
which  is  a  novelty  without  precedent  in  American  journalism. 

No  senator  in  the  present  generation  has  attracted  by  his 
speeches  such  full  attendance  on  the  floor  of  the  Senate  Cham 
ber  and  such  overflowing  crowds  in  the  galleries.  To  have 
every  Senator  present  in  his  seat,  and  to  have  the  public  gal 
leries  and  even  the  corridors  crowded  with  eager  listeners,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  have  it  known  beforehand  that  "Ingalls  is 
going  to  speak." 

THE  STANDING  OF  SENATOR  INGALLS  IN  His  PARTY. 

As  President  pro  tempore  of  the  Senate  during  the  period 
of  the  Democratic  administration  in  the  executive  departments 
of  the  Government,  Senator  Ingalls  occupied  the  highest  posi 
tion  within  the  gift  of  the  Republican  party,  and  as  permanent 
President  pro  tempore  now,  with  the  Vice -President  of  the 
United  States  alive,  he  not  only  occupies  the  highest  position 
to  which  the  Senate  can  elect  one  of  its  members,  but  also 


492  JOHN  JAMES  IXGALLS. 

wears  an  honor  which  was  never  before  conferred  upon  any 
Senator. 

The  Senator  is  not  a  rich  man.  That  is  the  reason  why, 
they  say,  he  has  given  up  the  house  he  used  to  tenant  on 
Capitol  Hill,  and  has  gone  with  his  family  to  a  respectable 
but  modest  boarding-house  in  the  West  End.  He  may  be  a 
poor  man,  but  he  is  as  proud  as  Lucifer.  He  pays  no  homage 
to  any  millionaire  because  he  is  a  millionaire.  He  is  one  of 
the  most  radical  of  Republican  partisans,  but  no  man  breaks 
through  the  restraints  of  party  discipline  more  fearlessly  or 
more  freely  when  he  feels  he  is  right.  His  temperament  is 
critical,  his  nature  is  combative,  and  he  glories  in  a  fight. 

A  VlVISECTIONIST  WITH  INTENSE   HATES  AND  LOVES. 

In  debate  with  an  opponent  he  is  merciless.  As  a  critic  of 
contemporary  statesmen,  he  is  a  vivisectionist.  His  hates  are 
as  pronounced  and  numerous  as  his  loves.  But  he  is  not  an 
ill-natured  man,  as  some  people  seem  to  think.  He  is  not 
given  much  to  levity  or  joking,  but  he  likes  to  laugh  occasion 
ally  and  seems  to  find  pleasure  in  making  other  people  laugh. 

On  the  whole,  notwithstanding  what  has  been  frequently 
called  "that  knout  of  a  tongue"  of  his,  he  seems  to  take  more 
pleasure  in  seeing  a  friend  laugh  than  an  enemy  weep.  There 
is  more  innocent  amusement  in  him  than  the  casual  observer 
would  observe.  He  is  a  thorough  Bohemian  of  the  intellectual 
kind,  and  those  who  know  him  best  say  that  he  has  something 
of  the  poet  and  the  naturalist  in  his  temperament. 

FOND  OF  POETRY  AND  FLOWERS. 

Mrs.  Ingalls  says  he  has  written  very  pretty  poetry.  In 
the  summer-time  he  is  certainly  fond  of  sauntering  through 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  493 

Capitol  Park  in  the  afternoon  after  the  Senate  has  adjourned, 
examining  the  flowers  and  bushes.  In  the  United  States  Sen 
ate  he  has  not  more  than  three  or  four  seniors  in  length  of  sen 
atorial  service,  and  in  the  power  ' '  the  applause  of  listening  sen 
ates  to  command"  not  a  single  superior;  but  he  is  still  proud 
of  his  early  work  as  a  newspaper  man. 

The  new  house  where  the  Senator  is  at  present  boarding  is 
on  H  Street,  within  half  a  block  of  the  Shoreham,  the  Vice- 
President's  new  hotel,  and  within  a  couple  of  blocks  of  The 
World  bureau.  It  is  a  house  with  a  history.  A  few  years  ago 
the  Court  of  Alabama  Claims  sat  there,  and  since  then  it  was 
the  abode  of  the  Jefferson  Club,  which  is  now  defunct.  It  has 
gone  through  so  many  changes  that  its  best  friends  wouldn't 
know  it  either  within  or  without. 

CALLING  ON  SENATOR  INGALLS  AT  His  BOARDING-HOUSE. 

The  Senator  is  only  one  of  many  boarders,  but  he  has  a 
modest  suite  of  apartments  on  the  ground  floor,  and  when  the 
Sunday  World  interviewer,  with  the  instantaneous  photogra 
pher,  called  upon  him,  he  looked  comfortable,  although  very 
busy.  Whether  at  his  lodgings  or  at  the  Capitol,  he  always 
has  from  one  to  half  a  dozen  stenographers  and  typewriters 
engaged.  Mrs.  Ingalls  attends  to  most  of  the  entertainment 
of  those  who  make  merely  friendly  or  sentimental  calls.  But 
the  Sunday  World  interviewer  and  his  artistic  companion  were 
entertained  by  the  Senator  himself,  as  the  sequel  will  show. 

THE  ARRANGEMENTS  FOR  THE  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW. 

With  unfeigned  reluctance  on  the  part  of  the  Senator,  but 
with  commensurate  persistency  on  the  part  of  the  newspaper 
man,  the  interview  had  been  arranged  for  in  advance.  The 


494  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

agreement  was  that  the  Senator  should  ignore  altogether  the 
presence  of  the  photographer,  who  was  to  be  permitted  to 
make  as  many  instantaneous  pictures  as  he  chose  and  just 
whenever  he  felt  inclined. 


THE  INTERVIEW. 

(Copyright,  1890,  by  the  Press  Publishing  Company,  the  New  York  World  ) 

"How  are  you?"  said  the  Senator,  heartily,  offering  his 
hand  to  the  visitors,  who  had  just  been  ushered  into  his  parlor, 
and  there  was  a  quizzical  smile  on  his  face  and  a  merry  twinkle 
in  his  eye,  as  if  to  say:  "Well,  you  pair  of  rascals,  you  have 
come  to  play  tricks  on  me." 

But  he  had  promised  to  participate  in  the  experiment,  and 
he  didn't  flinch. 

"We  are  here,  Senator,  to  receive  from  you  all  the  wisdom 
that  you  are  willing  to  impart  to  the  world  on  public  affairs  in 
general ;  and  in  order  that  you  may  have  no  reason  to  complain 
of  the  inaccuracy  of  the  reporter,  we  are  prepared  to  give  you 
the  benefit  of  all  that  stenography  and  photography  combined 
can  do  to  represent  you  fairly." 

INTERVIEWERS  vs.  POLITICAL  COMMENTATORS. 

"I  cannot  say,  gentlemen,  that  I  have  ever  had  much  occa 
sion  to  complain  of  the  inaccuracy  of  the  newspaper  inter 
viewers,"  said  Mr.  Ingalls.  "The  newspaper  interviewer  gen 
erally  makes  a  pretty  accurate  report.  Like  other  men  in  pub 
lic  life,  I  have  at  times  been  misrepresented  in  the  papers; 
but  these  misrepresentations  do  not,  as  a  rule,  originate  in  the 
interviewer's  department.  It  is  the  editorial  writer  and  the 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  495 

political  commentator  that  public  men  have  most  reason  to 
complain  of.  But,  everything  considered,  we  haven't  much 
reason  to  complain  at  all." 

"In  the  pictorial  branch  of  the  interview,  at  all  events, 
Senator,  we  could  not  misrepresent  you  if  we  would ;  the  appa 
ratus,  you  know,  cannot  lie." 

"Well,  I  am  very  glad  to  have  your  word  for  that.  For  the 
rest  of  it,  I  can  only  place  myself  in  your  hands.  I  am  at  your 
mercy.  If  you  do  not  treat  me  fairly,  you  will  only  forfeit  my 
good  opinion.  And  now,  gentlemen,  may  I  ask  on  what  sub 
ject  you  desire  me  to  express  my  views?" 

"Is  not  the  Government,  Senator,  interfering  now  more 
than  it  formerly  did  with  what  are  usually  regarded  as  the 
private  affairs  of  individuals?" 

THE  GOVERNMENT'S  DISREGARD  OF  THE  INDIVIDUAL. 

"Yes,"  said  the  Senator,  "it  begins  to  appear  as  if  individ 
uals  had  no  rights  or  no  private  business  which  the  Govern 
ment  was  bound  to  respect.  The  injustice  of  society  and  the 
inequality  of  conditions  have  given  an  enormous  impulse  to 
the  idea  of  nationalism,  the  control  of  all  economic  agencies  by 
the  direct  interposition  of  the  Government.  This  is  the  logical 
reaction  from  individualism,  on  which  our  system  was  founded. 
The  hope  that  political  equality  would  result  in  the  destruction 
of  poverty  and  in  the  social  fraternity  has  not  been  realized. 
There  are  larger  private  fortunes,  there  is  greater  political 
power  in  fewer  hands;  in  other  words,  there  is  more  tyranny 
in  the  Republic  than  in  a  monarchy.  The  strongest  succeeds 
more  rapidly  and  more  readily  here  because,  liberty  being  com 
mon  to  all,  there  are  no  restraints  and  limitations  to  overcome. 
The  demand  now  is,  therefore,  not  that  all  shall  be  free,  but 


496  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

that  all  shall  be  .restrained  from  the  full  exercise  of  their  fac 
ulties  and  from  the  enjoyment  of  their  acquisitions." 
''Will  the  supply  be  equal  to  the  demand,  Senator?" 

THE  SENATOR'S  GENTLE  SARCASM. 

"There  have  been  more  marked  concessions  in  this  direction 
during  the  last  decade,  and  the  success  of  the  experiments  has 
been  so  notable  that  future  movement  in  the  same  direction 
is  not  improbable.  When  the  Government  takes  control  of 
the  agencies  of  society,  we  shall  be  virtuous,  contented,  and 
happy — just  as  we  now  all  have  gilt-edged  butter  under  the 
oleomargarine  law,  reduced  freight  and  passenger  rates  under 
the  interstate  commerce  law,  and  pure  and  non-partisan  pol 
itics  under  the  Civil  Service  law." 

"Talking  about  purity  in  politics,  Senator,  I  suppose  you 
hold  that  whatever  political  purity  may  exist  belongs  exclu 
sively  to  the  Republican  party?" 

THE  WILL  OF  THE  PEOPLE  HAMPERED. 

"With  the  possible  exception  of  the  two  terms  of  Wash 
ington,"  the  Senator  replied,  "there  has  not  been  an  absolutely 
fair,  free,  and  impartial  expression  of  the  deliberate  will  of  the 
people  in  the  Presidential  election  since  the  foundation  of  the 
Government.  I  doubt  if  there  ever  will  be.  Patronage  will 
allure  the  ambitious,  force  will  coerce  the  timid,  demagogism 
will  gull  the  credulous,  fraud  will  rob  the  weak,  money  will 
buy  the  mercenary." 

"Is  it  to  be  ever  thus,  Senator?" 

Do  POLITICAL  ENDS  JUSTIFY  THE  MEANS? 
"The  purification  of  politics  is  an  iridescent  dream.     Gov 
ernment  is  force.     Politics  is  a  battle  for  supremacy.     Parties 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  497 

are  the  armies.  The  Decalogue  and  the  Golden  Rule  have  no 
place  in  a  political  campaign.  The  object  is  success.  To 
defeat  the  antagonist  and  dispel  the  party  in  power  is  the 
purpose.  The  Republicans  and  Democrats  are  as  irrecon 
cilably  opposed  to  each  other  as  were  Grant  and  Lee  in  the 
Wilderness.  They  use  ballots  instead  of  guns,  but  the  strug 
gle  is  as  unrelenting  and  desperate  and  the  result  sought  for 
the  same.  In  war  it  is  lawful  to  deceive  the  adversary,  to 
hire  Hessians,  to  purchase  mercenaries,  to  mutilate,  to  kill,  to 
destroy.  The  commander  who  lost  a  battle  through  the  activ 
ity  of  his  moral  nature  would  be  the  derision  and  jest  of  history. 
This  modern  cant  about  the  corruption  of  politics  is  fatiguing 
in  the  extreme.  It  proceeds  from  the  tea-custard  and  sylla 
bub  dilettanteism,  the  frivolous  and  desultory  sentimentalism 
of  epicenes  like — 

"Like  whom,  Senator?" 

"Oh!  you  can  fill  in  the  names  yourself — or  else  from  the 
cheap  and  brazen  hypocrites  like  Thingimmy,   the   greatest 
confidence-man  and  bunco-steerer  of  modern  Democracy." 
"And  who  is  Thingimmy,  Senator?" 
"Oh!  I  fancy  the  readers  of  The  World  can  guess." 
"On  the  whole,  you  haven't  a  very  good  opinion  of  modern 
Democracy,  Senator?" 

A  CAUSTIC  OPINION  OF  THE  DEMOCRACY. 

"The  Democratic  party,  having  neither  conscience,  con 
victions,  nor  defined  principles,  inevitably  allies  itself  with  dis 
content,  and  is  arrayed  against  social  order.  It  is  strongest 
where  public  and  private  morality  is  weakest.  Its  citadels 
are  in  the  South,  where  society  is  distinctly  feudal,  and  in  the 
great  cities,  where  the  ignorant  and  criminal  elements  are  most 


498  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

energetic.  It  has  no  beliefs,  maxims,  or  formulas.  Its  creed 
is  the  instruction  of  Jefferson — that  in  a  popular  government 
wealth,  intelligence,  and  morality  are  ultimately  no  match 
for  numbers.  For  twenty-five  years  its  only  policy  has  been 
to  complain,  to  oppose,  to  deny,  to  protest,  and  ultimately 
to  acquiesce  in  what  the  Republicans  have  done.  So  when 
Cleveland  came  in,  being  without  plans,  purpose,  or  policy, 
his  administration  floundered  pitiably  both  in  domestic  and 
foreign  affairs,  was  contemptible  in  many  things  and  feeble 
in  all,  and  left  absolutely  no  impression  whatever  upon  history 
except  in  the  matter  of  vetoing  bills  for  pensions  and  public 
buildings.  It  followed  Republican  methods  and  carried  on 
Republican  ideas,  so  that  when  Harrison  was  inaugurated,  it 
was  as  if  a  stitch  had  been  dropped  merely,  and  we  have  kept 
right  along  with  our  work." 

"Do  you  imagine,  Senator,  that  Mr.  Cleveland  will  be 
nominated  again  by  the  Democrats  for  the  Presidency?" 

THE  SENATOR  SAYS  CLEVELAND  WILL  BE  RENOMINATED. 

"Oh,  yes,  Cleveland  will  be  the  nominee  in  1892,  even  if 
New  York  should  be  divided  or  against  him.  This  is  inevit 
able.  It  is  written.  He  will  be  first,  and  the  rest  nowhere. 
Democracy  never  had  such  an  ideal  exponent  and  represent 
ative.  His  dull,  heavy,  ponderous,  wooden  platitudes,  labori 
ously  written  out  and  committed  to  memory;  his  stolid  and 
shallow  conceit;  his  affectation  of  wisdom,  purity,  and  patri 
otism,  and  what  he  calls  his  'solemn  sense  of  duty,'  impress 
the  average  Democrat  with  a  feeling  of  reverence  like  that 
which  the  Chinese  laundryman  feels  for  his  Joss." 

"Senator,  you  have  said  that  the  Democratic  administra 
tion  left  no  impression  on  history.  What  impression  have  the 
recent  Republican  administrations  left?" 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  499 

WE  HAVE  MADE  No  HISTORY  FOR  TWELVE  YEARS. 

"I  admit, "  the  Senator  replied,  "that  we  are  a  nation 
which  for  the  past  dozen  years  has  had  no  history.  The 
whole  career  of  our  country  as  a  nation  has  been  one  of  drift 
ing.  There  have  been  no  vigorous  or  distinctive  exhibitions 
of  original  statecraft.  We  have  been  going  through  an  age 
of  material  development.  The  national  energy,  instead  of 
being  shown  in  the  direction  of  public  affairs,  has  confined 
itself  to  the  colonization  of  desert  spaces  and  the  building  up 
of  new  States  in  the  wilderness.  The  public  service  and  pub 
lic  men,  as  a  rule,  have  not  kept  pace  with  the  material  devel 
opment  of  the  country.  I  do  not  mean  to  say  that  we  have 
no  great  men,  but  the  public  service  does  not  command  the 
greatest,  because  the  highest  rewards  of  intellectual  activity 
and  more  satisfactory  equivalents  are  found  in  other  voca 
tions.  Public  life  has  degenerated  into  a  species  of  servi 
tude,  and  the  inevitable  tendency  is  toward  mediocrity  and 
pusillanimity." 

"What  is  your  idea,  Senator,  of  a  definite  American  policy?" 

A  CONTINENT  FOR  THE  REPUBLIC. 

"The  American  policy  should  have  for  its  object  the  unifi 
cation  of  the  continent.  The  Polar  Sea  should  be  the  north 
ern  boundary  of  the  Republic,  and  the  southern  boundary 
should  be  the  Interoceanic  Canal.  Look  at  the  existing 
conditions.  We  have  practically  reached  the  limit  of  our 
agricultural  domain.  We  have  but  10,000,000  acres  of  arable 
lands  left.  We  are  approaching  that  period  spoken  of  by 
Macaulay  as  dangerous  to  republican  institutions,  when  the 
vast  migrations  to  these  undeveloped  regions  will  have  ceased, 


500  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

and  when  the  artisans  and  toiling  masses  concentrated  in  the 
large  cities  will  have  no  outlet  for  their  surplus  numbers  and 
no  demand  for  their  labor.  I  might  say  the  American  idea  is 
hemispherical  rather  than  continental.  We  have  now  a  con 
tinuous  line  of  railway  to  Mexico.  The  next  step  will  be  an 
iron  highway  in  the  valley  of  the  Amazon.  I  expect  to  see 
the  valleys  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Amazon  linked  together 
by  the  great  agency  of  modern  civilization.  The  overflow  of 
population  will  thus  find  peaceful  fields  of  profitable  effort." 
"So  you  think,  Senator,  that  after  a  while  the  whole  bound 
less  hemisphere  will  be  ours?" 

THEN  WE'LL  HAVE  A  HEMISPHERE 

"I  do;  continent  first,  then  hemisphere.  The  idea  is  growing 
rapidly  in  this  country,  especially  in  the  West,  where  the  polit 
ical  power  of  the  Republic  is  lodged.  Under  the  readjustment 
of  political  forces  which  has  occurred  in  accordance  with  the 
last  census,  the  seat  of  political  power  has  been  transferred 
west  of  the  Alleghany  Mountains.  That  great  region  extend 
ing  from  Manitoba  to  the  Gulf  of  Mexico,  and  sweeping  across 
the  basin  of  the  Mississippi  from  the  Alleghanies  to  the  Rocky 
Mountains,  homogeneous  in  population,  geographically  unified 
and  with  common  interests  politically,  socially,  and  econom 
ically,  represent  to-day  the  political  power  of  this  continent. 
It  has  a  majority  of  the  aggregate  representation  in  the  lower 
house  of  Congress,  and,  with  the  admission  of  the  new  States, 
a  majority  of  the  votes  in  the  Senate  and  in  the  Electoral 
College." 

THE  WEST  AND  SOUTH  INVINCIBLE. 

"The  interests  of  the  West  and  South  are  identical,  and 
they  should  be  unified.  Their  alliance  upon  all  matters  affect- 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  501 

ing  their  national  welfare  is  inevitable.  If  they  coalesce,  they 
will  be  invincible.  We  shall  hold  the  purse  and  wield  the 
sword  of  the  Nation,  and  we  shall  use  them,  not  for  oppression, 
but  for  justice.  The  valleys  of  the  Mississippi  and  the  Mis 
souri,  with  their  tributaries  from  the  Yellowstone  to  the  Gulf, 
form  a  magnificent  empire  that  must  have  a  homogeneous 
population  and  a  common  destiny." 

"There  are  people  who  would  be  surprised  to  learn  that 
Senator  Ingalls  regarded  the  South  as  fit  to  associate  with  the 
West  or  to  share  the  same  destiny,"  observed  the  Sunday  World 
representative. 

"It  is  not  my  fault  that  I  am  sometimes  misunderstood," 
said  the  Senator.  Then  he  added,  reflectively: 

SECTIONS  ESTRANGED  BY  POLITICAL  FACTIONS. 
"These  great  communities  that  were  only  separated  by 
the  system  of  slavery  have  since  its  destruction  been  alien 
ated  by  factions  that  have  estranged  them  only  to  prey  upon 
them  and  to  maintain  political  supremacy  for  their  alienation. 
Unfriendly  legislation  has  imposed  intolerable  burdens  upon 
their  energies,  invidious  discrimination  has  been  made  against 
their  products,  unjust  tariffs  have  repressed  their  industries. 
While  vast  appropriations  have  been  made  to  protect  the  At 
lantic  and  the  Lakes,  and  to  improve  the  navigation  of  the  in 
considerable  streams,  the  Mississippi's  waters  are  left  choked 
with  its  drifting  sands.  Bads  with  his  daring  energies  under 
took  at  his  own  risk  the  gigantic  labor  of  compelling  the  great 
stream  to  dredge  its  own  channel  to  the  sea." 

THE  EAST  WILL  THEN  BE  AN  APPENDAGE. 
"The  ultimate  coalition  of  all  political  forces  of  this  section 
is   inevitable.     The  West   will   then  secure  its  emancipation 


5O2  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

from  the  control  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific  appendages  with 
justice — in  fact,  I  might  say  with  more  justice  than  they  have 
hitherto  shown  to  us." 

"Then  the  West,  you  think,  Senator,  is  to  be  more  potent 
than  the  East  in  working  out  the  destiny  of  the  Republic?" 

THE  STAR  OF  EMPIRE  ALREADY  GONE  WESTWARD. 

"Intellectual  energy  of  this  country  has  already  trans 
ferred  itself  to  the  West.  The  West  is  now  the  theatre  of  the 
combined  energetic  and  potential  forces  of  New  England  and 
the  Middle  States.  At  this  moment  there  are  more  people  of 
Connecticut  ancestry  living  on  the  Western  Reserve  in  Ohio 
than  you  will  find  in  the  State  of  Connecticut.  The  future 
triumphs  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  will  be  accomplished  in  the 
Valley  of  the  Mississippi,  a  vast  empire  in  itself,  and  not  in  the 
valley  of  the  Thames  or  the  Hudson,  or  of  the  Delaware.  The 
people  at  large  very  little  know  what  a  tremendous  undercur 
rent  of  thought,  involving  grand  ideas,  is  moving  with  irre 
sistible  force  throughout  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of  the 
West.  One  of  the  elements  of  public  thought  in  this  great 
region  is  the  unification  of  the  continent." 

"As  a  Western  man,  Senator,  you  have  taken  a  lively  inter 
est  in  the  question  of  transportation.  From  an  ironical  remark 
you  made,  I  should  suppose  that  you  do  not  find  things  much 
improved  by  the  interstate  commerce  law." 

THE  CONSTANT  AIM  OF  THE  SENATOR'S  LIFE. 

"To  assist  and  stimulate  the  development  and  improve 
ment  of  the  vast  water  system  of  the  interior  basin  of  the  con 
tinent,  extending  between  the  Alleghany  and  the  Rocky  Mount- 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  503 

ains,  from  Maine  to  the  Gulf,  has  been  one  constant  aim  and 
endeavor  of  my  public  life. 

"I  have  no  sympathy  with  the  political  economists  who 
would  array  the  poor  against  the  rich,  with  the  empty  and 
sonorous  demagogism  which  asserts  that  there  is  an  irrepres 
sible  conflict  between  capital  and  labor,  and  that  would  make 
indiscriminate  war  upon  corporations  as  the  natural  enemies 
of  the  people;  but  we  are  confronted  with  many  economic 
problems,  chief  among  which  is  that  of  cheap  transportation, 
and  I  believe  its  solution  lies  not  in  the  representative  legisla 
tion,  but  in  competition  between  water  lines  and  railroads. 
Under  the  constitutional  power  of  Congress  to  regulate  com 
merce  between  the  States,  I  have  no  doubt  of  the  authority  of 
the  Government  to  assume  either  partial  or  complete  control 
of  all  the  great  trunk  lines  of  transportation  and  to  regulate 
the  burdens  that  are  imposed  upon  the  productive  labor  of  the 
country." 

"How  can  that  be  accomplished?" 

"It  can  best  be  done  by  establishing  uniform  rates  of 
freight,  so  as  to  prevent  unjust  discriminations  between  way 
and  through  carriers,  or  by  an  intelligent  system  of  internal 
improvement,  opening  near  or  improving  old  routes  of  trans 
portation  to  the  seaboard." 

To  SoiyVE  THE  TRANSPORTATION  PROBLEM. 

"The  Atlantic  communities,  by  their  superior  thrift  and 
vigilance,  have  secured  advantages  which  have  enabled  them 
to  dictate  terms  to  the  producers  of  the  West.  They  have 
constructed  thousands  of  miles  of  railroads  and  watered  the 
stock  by  countless  millions  of  dollars,  upon  which  the  dividends 
are  paid  from  the  exorbitant  rate  that  the  farmers  of  the  Mis- 


504  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

sissippi  Valley  are  compelled  to  pay  for  carrying  food,  without 
which  Eastern  commerce  would  languish  and  the  population 
starve." 

THE  POWER  OF  THE  RAILROAD  MONARCHS. 

"The  great  carrying  business  of  the  country  is  under  the 
absolute  control  of  a  few  persons,  upon  whose  edicts  depends 
the  prosperity  of  the  Nation.  By  their  combination  they  are 
enabled  to  fix  the  price,  control  the  supplies,  create  fictitious 
demand  or  artificial  scarcity,  and  thus  disturb  the  whole  basis 
of  values  in  the  commercial  world.  With  daring  admirable 
genius  those  monarchs  have  devised,  and  with  inconceivable 
energy  they  have  constructed,  a  system  of  highways  the  most 
wonderful  known  to  man." 

' '  Your  friendship  for  the  waterways  does  not  interfere  with 
your  admiration  for  the  greatness  of  the  railroad?" 

MIRACLES  OF  ENGINEERING  SKILL. 

"The  capitalists  of  Boston  have  bored  a  tunnel  five  miles 
long  through  a  mountain  of  granite  at  an  expense  of  $20,000,000 
to  reach  the  region  without  ascending  an  insignificant  eleva 
tion  of  1500  feet,  and  to  shorten  the  distance  but  forty-three 
miles.  New  York  has  the  Erie  and  the  Central,  with  their 
connections;  Philadelphia  and  Baltimore,  other  independent 
lines,  built  at  stupendous  cost,  climbing  mountains  by  inclined 
planes  or  piercing  them  by  tunnels,  crossing  great  rivers  by 
viaducts  that  are  miracles  of  engineering  skill,  all  to  persuade 
our  produce  to  flow  to  their  respective  markets.  If  they  should 
share  the  expense  of  transportation  with  the  producers,  then 
there  would  be  less  cause  for  complaint ;  but  the  rates  are  es 
tablished  high  enough  to  pay  interest  on  the  bonds,  dividends 
on  the  stock,  the  cost  of  operation,  deterioration  and  waste 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW  505 

of  plant,  and  extravagant  salaries  to  swarnis  of  ornamental 
officials. 

"Those  who  are  familiar  with  the  railroad  legislation  and 
jurisprudence  of  the  last  dozen  years,  and  reflect  that  these 
gigantic  expenditures  are  derived  from  the  revenues  of  the 
roads,  can  readily  perceive  why  corn  that  may  be  worth  $1.00 
in  New  York  in  ordinary  years  only  brings  20  cents  in  Missouri 
and  Kansas. 

' '  But  Nature,  so  bountiful  to  us  in  all  things,  has  not  left 
us  without  peaceful  methods  of  redress.  It  is  not  necessary 
that  we  should  use  the  railroads  of  Eastern  capitalists  nor  pay 
tribute  into  the  coffers  of  Eastern  merchants." 

"You  mean  the  water  cure,  I  suppose,  Senator?" 

"The  water  cure  is  what  I  mean.  Water  is  a  great  blessing 
when  put  to  its  proper  uses,"  said  the  Senator,  smiling.  "This 
great  valley,  the  great  grain  empire  of  the  earth,  has  no  natural 
connection  with  the  Atlantic  seaboard.  Its  rivers  run  south 
and  south  flow  the  currents  of  its  atmosphere.  The  gloomy 
mountain  ranges  that  wall  this  valley  interpose  their  external 
obstacles  to  this  enforced  intercourse. 

"We  have  an  unequal  system  of  movable  highways,  graded 
with  a  facility  of  descent  unattainable  by  the  skill  of  the  engin 
eer.  It  crosses  in  denies  to  be  spanned  by  costly  viaducts  of 
massive  masonry.  There  is  no  right-of-way  to  be  secured 
from  avaricious  proprietors  of  the  soil ;  no  barriers  to  be  pierced 
by  tunnels  or  ascended  by  the  laborious  engines  dragging  their 
reluctant  trains. 

"No  expensive  appliances  of  machinery  are  required  to 
provide  the  power  to  move  the  vehicles  that  require  transpor 
tation.  Nature  has  furnished  the  motive  power  in  the  momen 
tum  of  the  irresistible  current  that  flows  from  the  melting 


506  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

snows  of  the  North,  gathering  force  and  volume  as  it  descends 
through  thousands  of  fertile  leagues,  its  waves  now  almost 
unmoved  by  the  keel  from  the  mountain  to  the  sea. 

"These  rivers  and  their  innumerable  tributaries,  twenty 
thousand  miles  in  length,  and  draining  the  great  food-producing 
area  of  the  world,  are  the  natural  outlet  for  all  the  production 
of  the  valleys  through  which  they  flow.  They  offer  a  perpet 
ual  invitation  to  the  farmers  of  the  West  to  avail  themselves 
of  their  cheap  and  accessible  transportation." 

"Senator,  it  is  the  first  time  I  have  ever  heard  you  grow  so 
eloquent  over  water."  The  Senator  laughed. 

' ' I  rather  expected  that,"  he  said.  ' '  I  thought  I  was  giving 
you  a  little  too  much  water.  Well,  I'll  be  merciful,  and  give 
you  relief  by  changing  the  subject.  In  the  meantime,  let  me 
add  that  already,  by  the  improvement  of  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi,  New  Orleans  has  become  accessible  for  sea-going 
vessels  of  the  largest  tonnage.  By  the  removal  of  the  tem 
porary  obstructions  and  the  improvement  of  the  channel,  it  is 
not  improbable  that  men,  now  living,  will  see  ocean  steamers 
from  Liverpool  and  London  ascending  the  Mississippi  and  dis 
charging  and  receiving  cargoes  at  the  port  of  St.  Louis." 

"Is  demagogism  necessary  to  succeed  in  politics?" 

THE  WAYS  OF  THE  SKILLFUL  POLITICAL  NAVIGATOR. 

"That  depends  on  what  you  mean  by  the  term.  Occa 
sional  surrender  of  political  judgment  to  public  opinion  is  pru 
dent,  and  respectful  deference  to  widespread  error  is  now  and 
then  expedient.  It  is  always  well  to  keep  the  Pole-star  in 
view,  but  when  the  wind  is  dead  ahead,  a  skillful  navigator  will 
either  tack  or  drop  anchor." 

"Our  destiny,  Senator,  you  say,  is  continental?" 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  507 

"Our  destiny  is  continental.  The  Monroe  doctrine  is  writ 
ten  on  every  map  of  the  United  States.  The  tendency  to 
absorption  is  irresistible.  The  process  will  be  peaceful,  but 
our  northern  boundary  must  be  the  Arctic  Circle  and  our 
southern  the  Isthmus  Canal." 

"And  in  the  way  of  our  continental  destiny,  Senator,  shall 
we  have  a  war  with  England  or  any  other  power?" 

OUR  ONLY  ENEMY  ENGLAND,  AND  SHE  's  AFRAID  OP  Us. 

"War?  No,  we  shall  have  no  wars.  With  whom  should  we 
fight  ?  We  have  no  dangerous  neighbors  and  no  dependencies, 
nor  colonial  possessions.  We  are  too  powerful  and  too  neces 
sary  to  the  sustenance  of  mankind.  We  are  at  once  the  most 
pacific  and  most  martial  of  the  nations,  but  our  relations 
with  France  are  those  of  fraternity;  with  Germany  and  Aus 
tria,  of  cordial  amity.  We  have  no  enemy  but  England,  and 
she  is  too  vulnerable  in  every  quarter  of  the  globe  and  on  every 
sea  to  go  to  war  with  us.  We  have  an  unsettled  score  with 
Great  Britain  for  her  malevolent  insolence,  but  nothing  is  so 
improbable  as  war.  Hence,  there  is  no  need  of  costly  arma 
ments.  Our  standing  army  is  only  a  national  police  force,  and 
the  demand  for  a  navy  comes  from  contractors,  maritime  cit 
ies  whose  pusillanimous  populations  pretend  to  believe  that 
their  accumulations  are  in  danger  from  foreign  ironclads,  and 
from  communities  adjacent  to  the  ship  and  navy  yards  who 
desire  to  profit  by  such  enterprise." 

THE  WASTING  OF  MILLIONS  ON  THE  NAVY. 

"In  ten  years  the  ships  we  are  building  will  be  useless, 
either  for- attack  or  defense.  The  millions  we  are  spending 
might  as  well  be  with  the  gentleman  whose  name  I  have  for- 


5oS  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

gotten — at  the  bottom  of  the  sea.  With  every  industry  de 
pressed  and  a  general  outcry  for  economy  in  administration, 
in  a  time  of  profound  peace,  we  are  dispatching  costly  fleets,  at 
an  enormous  daily  expenditure,  on  luxurious  pleasure  excur 
sions,  to  play  spectacular  parts  in  the  pageantry  of  the  sea, 
exchanging  entertainments  and  hospitalities  with  other  poten 
tates;  drinking  and  carousing  in  foreign  ports,  upon  the  pre 
text  that  such  performances  are  necessary  for  the  national 
honor  and  the  national  defense.  I  believe  a  Democratic  ad 
ministration  claims  the  distinction  of  inaugurating  the  policy 
for  squandering  our  resources  under  the  theory  that  we  must 
be  prepared  to  protect  ourselves  against  some  unknown  danger. 
It  is  as  absurd  as  it  must  be  for  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  to 
start  out  on  his  morning  walk  down  the  Avenue  with  a  Win 
chester  on  his  shoulder,  a  pair  of  revolvers  in  his  belt,  and  a 
Bowie-knife  in  each  boot,  upon  the  idea  that  some  ruffian 
might  attack  him  before  reaching  the  Capitol." 

"Senator,  would  you  mind  giving  us  your  estimate  of  the 
administration  of  President  Harrison?" 

Too  EARLY  TO  GIVE  A  VERDICT  ON  HARRISON. 

"Harrison's  administration  has  been  much  more  success 
ful  thus  far  than  Cleveland's  was  at  the  end  of  his  first  year. 
Cleveland  satisfied  nobody,  and  was  openly  and  unsparingly 
denounced  by  his  party  organs.  It  is  a  great  mistake  for  a 
President  to  suppose  that  by  neglecting  his  friends  he  can  pro 
pitiate  his  enemies.  Cleveland  got  no  support  from  the  Repub 
lican  party  by  allowing  Republicans  to  remain  in  office,  and  he 
alienated  many  Democrats.  The  most  formidable  error  of 
Harrison  is  in  regarding  himself  bound  to  follow  a  pernicious 
precedent.  Cleveland  saw  his  blunder  a  year  too  late  to  enable 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  509 

him  to  recover.  Most  people  are  human,  and  prefer  that  reform 
should  be  tried-  on  their  enemies  rather  than  on  themselves. 
And  if  President  Harrison  acts  on  this  line,  he  will  have  no 
trouble.  It  is  too  early  to  predict  what  the  verdict  will  be. 
The  statistics  do  not  exist.  Two  years  hence  will  be  soon 
enough.  He  has  had  a  'rocky'  time  so  far,  but  has  acquitted 
himself  with  dignity,  courage,  and  prudence.  His  tempera 
ment  is  dispassionate,  but  his  ideals  are  high,  and  I  am  confi 
dent  that  he  will  grow  constantly  in  public  estimation  and 
approval." 

"As  President  pro  tempore  of  the  Senate  for  several  years, 
your  interpretation  of  that  clause  of  the  Constitution  which 
relates  to  the  making  of  a  quorum  in  either  house  of  Congress 
would  be  read  with  interest,  in  view  of  the  recent  contest  in  the 
House  of  Representatives,"  the  interviewer  suggested. 

"As  President  pro  tempore  of  the  United  States  Senate 
now,"  replied  the  Senator,  "I  must  decline  at  present  to  at 
tempt  any  interpretation  of  the  clause." 

"You  have  never,  I  think,  Senator,  been  what  is  called  a 
strict  constructionist  of  the  Constitution?" 

NOT  A  STRICT  CONSTRUCTIONIST. 

"That  question  I  cannot  answer  better,"  said  the  Senator, 
"than  by  referring  to  some  remarks  which  I  had  occasion  to 
make  on  the  subject  in  the  course  of  debate  in  the  Senate  the 
other  day."  And  he  turned  over  a  file  of  the  "Congressional 
Record"  till  he  came  to  the  report  of  a  speech,  from  which  he 
read  as  follows: 

'"Mr.  President,  the  people  of  the  United  States  have  a  reasonable 
degree  of  respect  for  the  Constitution,  but  they  are  not  afraid  of  it.  A 
Constitution  is  a  growth,  not  a  manufacture,  and  the  Constitution  of 
1890,  by  reason  of  the  operation  of  the  will  of  the  people  who  made  it,  is 


5io  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

a  vastly  different  instrument  from  the  Constitution  of  1789.  Its  authors 
would  not  know  it.  They  made  it  for  specific  purposes,  not  for  the  object 
of  enabling  country  lawyers  to  devise  definitions,  not  for  the  purpose  of 
interposing  barriers  and  obstacles  to  the  will  of  the  people  of  the  United 
States.  The  Constitution  was  made,  not  by  the  States,  but  by  the  people 
of  the  United  States — ' 

"And  for  what? 

''"In  order  to  form  a  "more  perfect  Union,  establish  justice,  insure  do 
mestic  tranquillity,  provide  for  the  common  defense,  promote  the  general 
welfare,  and  secure  the  blessings  of  liberty  to  ourselves  and  our  posterity.'" 

SOMETHING  MORE  SACRED  THAN  CONSTITUTIONS. 

"The  Constitution  is  perpetually  invoked  by  the  narrow, 
rigid,  and  illiberal  constructionists  to  interpose  an  insuperable 
barrier  against  every  effort  to  better  the  condition  of  the  peo 
ple.  The  people  of  the  United  States  do  not  regard  the  Consti 
tution  with  superstition  or  awe.  They  know  that  there  are 
some  things  more  venerable  than  charters,  more  sacred  than 
constitutions,  and  those  are  the  rights  and  the  privileges  which 
charters  and  constitutions  are  ordained  to  establish  and  main 
tain.  At  every  stage  of  national  growth  and  progress  we  have 
been  met  by  the  interposition  of  those  minute  and  insectivo 
rous  propositions  that  the  Constitution  was  a  barrier  against 
the  determined  and  resolute  will  of  the  people." 

CAN  BE  MADE  TO  FIT  ALL  EMERGENCIES. 

"I  recollect  that  there  was  a  great  demonstration  that 
there  was  no  power  in  the  Constitution  to  coerce  a  State  which 
saw  fit  to  go  out  of  the  Union.  But  we  found  it ;  we  found 
it  somewhere  in  its  latent  recesses — 'public  welfare,'  'blessings 
of  liberty,'  wherever  it  might  be,  we  found  it.  We  are  told 
that  the  abolition  of  slavery  was  without  warrant  in  the  Con 
stitution,  but  we  found  the  warrant,  and  when  we  found  it 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  511 

could  not  be  done  in  the  letter,  it  was  amended  by  the  sword. 
It  is  a  fair  warning  to  those  who  attempt  to  insist  upon  verbal 
and  lingual  interpretations  against  the  will  of  the  people,  that 
whenever  the  elasticity,  the  capacity  to  carry  out  the  wishes 
and  the  will  of  the  people  is  not  sufficient,  there  will  always  be 
found  a  way  to  amend  it." 

THE  SENATOR'S  BEST  SPEECH. 

The  Senator  is  modest  in  his  way,  and  refuses  to  express 
any  opinion  as  to  the  merits,  relative  or  absolute,  of  any  of  his 
own  efforts.  Being  asked  which  of  all  the  notable  addresses 
he  ever  delivered  he  likes  best  himself,  he  paused  for  a  moment, 
seeming  rather  puzzled,  but  then  an  expression  of  relief  came 
over  his  face,  and,  with  a  mischievous  twinkle  in  his  eye,  he 
answered,  evasively: 

' '  I  think  Washington 's  Farewell  Address  was  probably  the 
best." 

This  was  a  sly  allusion  to  a  rather  unusual  task  which  was 
imposed  upon  the  Senator  as  presiding  officer  of  the  Senate  on 
the  anniversary  of  Washington's  birthday  two  years  ago.  A 
proposition  never  made  before  and  never  repeated  since  was 
then  put  forward  by  Senator  Hoar,  of  Massachusetts.  It  was 
that  the  anniversary  should  be  celebrated  by  the  Senate  hav 
ing  the  senators  meet  in  the  chamber  at  the  usual  hour  to 
hear  the  presiding  officer  recite  Washington's  Farewell  Address, 
and  for  no  other  business. 

IT  WAS  His  DUTY  TO  RECITE. 

The  proposal  was  adopted  almost  unanimously  by  the  Sen 
ate,  most  of  the  senators  agreeing  to  it  out  of  pure  devilment. 
But  Senator  Hoar  was  very  serious  about  it,  as  he  always  is 


512  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

about  everything;  and  the  situation  was  serious  to  Senator 
Ingalls,  although  it  was  ridiculous  to  most  of  his  brethren. 
Senator  Ingalls  was  presiding  officer,  and  upon  the  presiding 
officer  devolved  the  duty  of  giving  the  recitation. 

Senator  Ingalls,  according  to  the  custom  of  the  Senate, 
could  have  made  any  other  senator  presiding  officer,  tempora 
rily,  by  simply  designating  him  as  such,  and  he  was  greatly 
tempted  to  call  Senator  Hoar  to  the  chair  for  that  occasion ;  but, 
on  thinking  the  matter  over,  he  decided  the  other  way.  Any 
thing  in  the  shape  of  trickery  or  a  practical  joke  in  connection 
with  the  presiding  officer's  chair  he  could  not  seriously  con 
template;  so  when  the  morning  of  Washington's  birthday  came 
around,  and  when  the  senators  had  assembled  on  the  floors, 
and  the  public  had  crowded  into  the  galleries  to  witness  what 
they  expected  would  be  a  circus,  Ingalls  was  on  hand  with  his 
copy  of  Washington 's  address. 

How  THE  SENATOR  READ  WASHINGTON'S  FAREWELL  ADDRESS. 
Promptly  on  the  reading  of  the  order  of  the  day,  he  began 
his  recitation.  Some  of  the  senators  were  evidently  prepared 
for  a  little  gentle  guying,  and  the  crowds  in  the  galleries  were 
looking  for  lots  of  merriment;  but  it  didn't  come.  Ingalls 
was  as  solemn  as  an  owl,  as  cold  as  ice,  as  dignified  as  a  statue, 
and  from  beginning  to  end  of  the  recitation  there  wasn't  any 
thing  in  the  chamber  but  the  most  marked  attention  and  the 
most  exemplary  decorum.  When  it  was  all  over,  everybody 
seemed  to  be  just  as  solemn  as  Ingalls  had  appeared  at  the 
beginning. 

DIGNIFIED  IN  THE  CHAIR.     A  FIGHTER  ON  THE  FLOOR. 

Ingalls  on  the  floor  has  provoked  and  participated  in  some 
of  the  most  exciting  scenes  that  ever  enlivened  the  chamber, 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  513 

but  there  never  has  been  anything  but  the  most  perfect  order 
in  the  chamber  with  him  in  the  chair.  As  presiding  officer,  he 
lias  exercised  a  wonderful  control  over  the  Senate  and  the 
audience  in  the  galleries,  while  in  debate  on  the  floor  he  has 
raised  the  devil. 

Although  he  does  not  say  so  himself,  it  is  pretty  certain 
that  the  speech  which  gave  the  Senator  more  solid  comfort 
than  any  other  he  ever  delivered  was  his  celebrated  one  of 
March  25,  1886,  in  which,  while  indulging  in  his  favorite  pas 
time  of  abusing  Mr.  Cleveland,  he  gave  the  Mugwumps  a  furi 
ous  lashing.  As  he  still  stands  by  the  sentiment  then  expressed, 
lie  did  not  consider  it  necessary  to  give  the  interviewer  any 
new  experience  of  his  estimate  of  the  Civil  Service  reform. 

THE  SENATOR  SAYS  "Joe"  Is  THE  GREATEST  BOOK. 

"What  is  the  greatest  book  in  the  English  language?" 
Senator  Ingalls  was  asked. 

The  vSenator  reflected  a  moment,  then  stepped  over  to  a 
book-case,  and,  taking  down  a  small  Bible,  turned  over  a  few 
pages.  "The  book  of  Job,"  he  said,  "is  the  oldest  and,  in 
my  judgment,  the  highest  production  of  the  human  intellect. 
It  is  especially  interesting  because  it  shows  that  humanity 
at  the  dawn  of  history  was  engaged  in  considering  the  same 
problems  that  perplex  us  now — immortality,  the  existence  of 
evil,  the  afflictions  arid  misfortunes  of  the  good  in  this  world, 
and  the  prosperity  of  the  wicked.  We  have  made  no  progress 
In  solving  these  problems.  The  barriers  are  insurmountable. 
The  centuries  are  silent.  The  soul  struggles,  aspires,  beats  its 
wings  against  the  bars,  flutters,  and  disappears." 

"Is  it  within  the  capacity  of  statesmanship  to  give  the 
poor  a  better  chance  and  to  make  a  more  equal  distribution  of 


514  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

wealth  ?  Is  the  world  better  than  it  was  ?  Are  the  people  hap 
pier?  Is  religion  growing  or  declining?  Will  poverty  ever  be 
extinguished?" 

BUT  THE  WORLD  Is  CONSTANTLY  GROWING  BETTER. 

"This  has  been  the  great  problem  of  the  government  since 
history  began.  The  differences  between  men  are  inherent. 
Some  are  thrifty,  sagacious,  industrious,  sober,  enterprising; 
others  are  dull,  lazy,  dissolute,  and  careless.  Then  we  must 
admit  there  is  something  which,  for  want  of  a  better  name,  we 
call  luck,  so  that  the  dish  is  always  right  side  up  when  it  rains. 
All  men  cannot  be  rich,  famous,  happy.  There  is  not  enough 
to  go  around.  But  the  discontented,  the  unfortunate,  and  the 
wretched  attribute  their  calamities  to  everything  else  rather 
than  to  themselves.  They  blame  society  and  government  for 
their  failure,  and  attribute  the  success  of  their  competitors 
to  the  injustice  of  statutes.  All  that  legislation  can  do  is  to 
protect  the  weak  from  the  oppression  of  the  strong,  the  poor 
against  the  exactions  of  the  rich ;  give  them  all  equal  opportu 
nity,  equal  privilege,  and  an  equal  chance  in  the  race  of  life^ 
The  world  is  steadily  improving.  The  boundaries  of  human 
happiness  are  enlarging.  The  poorest  artisan  now  has  oppor 
tunities  for  enjoyment,  for  improvement,  for  study,  for  cure  in 
sickness,  for  the  preservation  of  health,  for  the  joy  of  living, 
that  five  centuries  ago  were  beyond  the  reach  of  kings." 

THE  SENATOR'S  CONCEPTION  OF  GOD. 

"Poverty  will  never  be  abolished,  nor  misery,  nor  pain,  nor 
disease.  They  are  inseparable  from  the  state  of  humanity. 
\Vere  all  men  contented  and  secure,  progress  would  cease  and 
the  race  would  expire.  The  age  is  essentially  devout  and 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  515 

religious.  The  mind  has  been  largely  emancipated  from  super 
stition  and  from  creeds,  and  has  entered  upon  an  excursion 
that  cannot  be  foretold,  but  that  is  certain  to  be  momentous. 
The  authority  of  the  Church  has  undoubtedly  been  greatly 
weakened  and  impaired,  but  this  does  not  imply  that  religion 
is  retrograding.  As  the  race  advances,  it  clothes  God  with 
higher  attributes  and  dignifies  Him  with  more  lofty  functions^ 
because  it  is  capable  of  noble  conceptions.  The  gloomy  and 
exorable  God  of  the  Puritans  has  disappeared.  He  has  been 
succeeded  by  a  Supreme  Being  of  infinite  mercy,  tenderness, 
and  goodness;  a  ruler,  a  law-maker,  a  legislator,  subject  to 
limitations  and  restraints  imposed  by  His  own  perfections." 

LOOKS  FOR  ANOTHER  CHRIST  AND  ANOTHER  REVELATION. 

' '  There  was  a  profound  truth  in  the  declaration  of  Voltaire, 
that  if  there  was  no  God,  it  would  be  necessary  for  man  to  in 
vent  one.  This  was  flippant  and  irreverent,  perhaps,  but  true. 
God  is  indispensable.  Man  perceives  this,  and  the  higher  his 
development  the  more  distinct  is  his  perception.  The  popu 
larity  of  Ingersoll  and  his  school  is  not  an  indication  of  infi 
delity,  but  is  rather  the  strongest  evidence  of  the  religious 
spirit  of  the  times,  its  receptivity,  its  eagerness  for  instruction, 
its  hunger  and  thirst  for  knowledge  about  what  can  never  be 
known.  No  age  has  ever  been  so  profoundly  moved  by  the 
consideration  of  the  problems  of  the  hereafter  as  this,  and  I 
have  no  doubt  that  in  response  to  the  search  for  eternal  truth 
another  Christ  will  come  and  another  revelation  will  be  made." 

"What  should  be  done  with  the  Louisiana  Lottery?" 

THE  LOTTERY  ULCER  SHOULD  BE   CAUTERIZED. 
"It  is  a  plague-spot,  a  moral  ulcer,  that  should  be  cauter 
ized  ;  it  is  a  disgrace  to  our  civilization  that  it  is  permitted  to 


516  JOHN  JAMES  IXGALLS. 

use  the  mails  and  the  Post  Office  Department  to  debauch  and 
plunder  the  Xation  to  the  extent  of  $20,000,000  or  $30,000,000 
every  year." 

"How  long  will  it  he  before  the  last  pensioner  connected 
with  the  late  war  for  the  Union  becomes  extinct?  And  how 
much  will  the  Government  then  have  paid  to  the  pensioners  of 
that  war?" 

A  $4,000,000,000  ESTIMATE  OK  THE   TOTAL  WAR   PENSIONS. 

"According  to  the  tables  of  mortality,  the  last  surviving 
soldier  of  the  war  for  the  Union  will  expire  between  1940  and 
1950,  but  the  pension-roll  will  rapidly  diminish  before  that 
time.  Pensions  to  widows  and  dependent  relatives  will,  how 
ever,  continue  for  a  much  longer  period.  Before  the  account 
is  finally  closed,  I  think  the  Government  will  have  paid  not 
less  than  four  thousand  million  dollars." 

"Don't  you  think  that  some  day  the  ex-Confederates  will 
be  admitted  to  the  pension-rolls  of  the  United  States?" 

A   LITTLE  RAP  AT  THE  DEMOCRACY. 

The  Senator  paused  to  reflect,  and  his  rather  hard  face 
melted  into  a  playful  smile  as  he  answered:  "It  will  not  be 
surprising  if  some  provision  is  ultimately  made  for  pensioning 
the  ex-Confederate  soldiers  should  the  Democratic  party  be 
restored  to  power." 

"Don't  you  think  that  senators  and  representatives  are 
poorly  paid  for  their  work?" 

"It  is  impossible  for  the  Government  to  compete  with  the 
private  employers  in  compensation  for  special  services.  Leg 
islation  is  not  an  occult  science  and  does  not  require  unusual 
faculties  nor  extraordinary  attainments.  The  ordinarv  bus- 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  517 

iness  of  Congress  can  be  successfully  conducted  by  the  average 
merchant  or  lawyer.  It  affords  opportunity  for  the  exercise 
of  the  highest  powers,  but  good,  solid  common  sense  and  in 
dustry  are  the  essentials.  The  Government  should  only  pay 
what  is  necessary  to  secure  such  services  as  are  requisite  for 
the  performance  of  its  work. 

"Salaries  should  be  sufficient  for  decent  support  Pol 
itics  has  been  a  favorite  pursuit  for  men  of  ambition  and  en 
ergy  in  all  ages,  and  will  probably  continue  to  be  for  all  time 
to  come.  But  no  one  is  compelled  to  dedicate  himself  to  the 
public  service.  It  is  voluntary,  and  if  the  conditions  are 
unsatisfactory,  there  is  no  obstacle  to  retirement.  While  it 
would  be  agreeable  to  receive  more,  my  impression  is  that  if 
salaries  were  doubled,  expenses  would  be  doubled,  and  the 
result  would  be  the  same.  Probably  a  majority  of  both 
houses  receive  as  much  now  as  they  could  earn  in  any  other 
capacity  for  the  same  amount  of  work." 

"Can  Germany,  Senator,  manage  to  get  along  without  Bis 
marck?  Will  civilization  and  progress  lose  by  Bismarck's  re 
tirement?  Will  Europe  still  have  abler  statesmen  than  Amer 
ica?  And  will  European  statesmanship  continue  to  have  a 
greater  influence  than  American  statesmanship  upon  the  des 
tiny  of  nations?" 

No  ONE  INDISPENSABLE — NOT  EVEN  CLEVELAND. 

"No  man  is  indispensable.  Lincoln  died  at  7  in  the  morn 
ing,  and  at  10:30  the  Government  was  running  along  as  if  he 
had  never  existed.  Perhaps  the  country  will  survive  the 
temporary  silence  and  retirement  of  Grover  Cleveland.  So 
Germany  will  probably  stagger  along  without  Bismarck,  al 
though  he  is  one  of  the  most  potential  forces  in  European 


JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

politics.  Brave  men  lived  before  Agamemnon,  and  whenever 
there  is  an  emergency  or  a  crisis,  there  is  a  leader.  But  the 
dominant  power  on  the  globe  now  is,  and  for  centuries  will 
continue  to  be,  the  United  States  of  America.  It  is  in  the 
same  arena  that  the  finer  conquests  of  civilization  are  to  be 
accomplished." 

"Wouldn't  it  be  better  if  we  had  a  restricted  franchise, 
and  what  kind  of  qualification  would  apply — property,  educa 
tion,  or  length  of  residence?" 

MANHOOD  SUFFRAGE  THE  CORRECT  THING. 

"To  your  main  question  I  would  answer:  ideally,  yes;  prac 
tically,  no.  Any  excluded  class  in  a  popular  government  in 
evitably  becomes  hostile.  A  citizen  who  is  denied  rights  that 
others  enjoy  becomes  a  conspirator.  Undoubtedly  it  would 
be  better  if  every  voter  could  read  and  write.  So  would  it 
be  better  if  every  voter  were  healthy,  moral,  well-dressed, 
with  a  balance  in  the  bank;  but  this  is  unattainable.  Man 
hood  suffrage  is  the  thing.  There  are  plenty  of  men  who 
are  illiterate,  yet  good  citizens;  and  lots  of  fellows  who 
have  money  and  can  speak  seven  or  eight  languages  who  are 
scoundrels. 

"To  make  property  or  education  the  condition  of  suffrage 
and  citizenship  would  be  an  absurdity.  In  addition  to  these 
considerations,  any  political  party  that  should  advocate  such 
political  restriction  would  incur  the  animosity  from  any  quar 
ter.  So,  with  regard  to  any  amendment  of  naturalization 
laws  requiring  long  residence  before  foreigners  could  vote,  un 
less  both  parties  should  concur,  neither  would  dare  to  take  the 
initiative." 


A  PHOTOGRAPHIC  INTERVIEW.  519 

Such  a  wide  range  of  subjects  having  been  covered,  and 
the  long  list  of  notes  of  interrogation  having  been  exhausted, 
not  to  mention  the  great  draft  made  upon  the  Senator's  time 
and  patience,  nothing  was  left  for  the  interviewers  to  do  but 
to  thank  the  Senator  for  his  courtesy,  and  depart. 

"I  am  in  your  hands,"  repeated  Senator  Ingalls,  rising  to 
see  his  visitors  out.  "And  now,  please,  treat  me  consider 
ately.  If  anything  I  have  said  will  serve  in  any  degree  to 
facilitate  your  undertaking,  it  will  be  a  great  satisfaction  to 
me  to  know  it. 

"I  hope  that  your  experiment  will  meet  with  the  success 
which  your  enterprise  deserves. 

"Good-bye.     Come  again." 


LETTERS. 


ATCHISON,  KANSAS, 

Thanksgiving  Evening,  November  28,  1872. 
Dear  Father: 

I  found  your  letter  on  my  return  from  the  United  States 
Circuit  Court  at  Topeka  yesterday  afternoon.  It  was  my  in 
tention  to  have  an  old-fashioned  celebration,  for  we  rigidly 
adhere  to  all  the  traditions;  but  I  woke  in  the  night  with 
a  violent  attack  of  sick  headache,  which  enabled  me  only  to 
take  a  cup  of  coffee  for  breakfast,  and  barely  left  me  in  a 
condition  to  join  the  family  at  dinner.  \Ye  had  a  turkey  of 
superb  dimensions  and  cooked  to  perfection;  potatoes,  cran 
berries,  celery  from  our  garden,  macaroni  with  cheese,  quinces 
and  pears  from  California,  fresh  figs  from  your  boxes,  raisins 
from  Malaga,  filberts,  almonds,  cheese  from  Xemaha  County, 
pound,  fruit,  and  jelly  cake,  mince  and  pumpkin  pie;  so 
that  you  see  we  did  not  suffer  in  our  lonely  cabin  upon  the 
frontier  in  the  far  West.  Frank  was  with  us,  and  we  talked 
over  old  times,  and  remembered  you  all,  from  one  end  of  the 
continent  to  the  other.  It  has  always  been  a  hope  of  mine  to 
unite  the  entire  family  on  some  Thanksgiving  Day,  here  in 
Kansas  under  my  own  roof.  I  am  the  eldest  of  the  brood,  and 
the  first  emigrant,  and  could  accommodate  a  crowd  as  well  as 
any  of  them,  and  trust  I  may  some  time  realize  the  anticipation. 

The  children  banqueted  with  us  at  discretion.  They  think 
you  grow  figs  as  peaches  grow  in  my  garden,  and  regard  you 


LETTERS.  521 

as  the  beneficent  genius  of  their  tender  years.  They  continue 
in  remarkable  health,  and  give  unabated  promise  of  excellence. 

My  furnace  is  not  yet  in  operation,  but  is  in  position,  wait 
ing  the  adjustment  of  the  hot-air  ducts.  I  think  it  will  add  to 
our  comfort,  as  it  certainly  will  conduce  to  the  ease  of  the  faith 
ful  Pendleton,  who  regards  the  fire-chamber  capable  of  con 
suming  four-foot  wood  with  sentiments  akin  to  ecstasy. 

It  has  been  very  cold  for  a  few  days  past,  and  the  river  is 
filled  with  floating  ice  that  moves  slowly  southward,  indicating 
that  the  current  is  gorged  below.  A  strong  north  wind  has 
been  blowing  all  day,  filling  the  air  with  clouds  of  yellow  dust 
from  the  bars. 

Frank  continues  to  grow  in  the  graces  and  good  opinion  of 
all  who  know  him.  He  has  many  extraordinary  mental  char 
acteristics:  self-possession,  poise,  command  of  his  faculties,  a 
temper  serene  and  placable,  and  intellectual  powers  that  are 
prophetic  of  future  growth.  He  seems  to  have  fine  capacity 
for  work,  and  an  absence  of  enthusiasms  and  sensibilities, 
which  go  so  far  to  make  life  endurable  and  successful.  He  is 
doing  a  great  deal  of  outside  work:  visiting,  calling  upon  the 
members  of  the  church  and  congregation;  and  has  the  entire 
confidence  of  his  people. 

I  have  thought  much  to-day  of  the  long  career  of  my  life, 
which  has  been  extended  so  long  beyond  my  early  anticipations, 
and  rendered  conspicuous  by  so  many  blessings  which  I  am 
conscious  I  have  not  deserved,  and  which  I  neyer  hoped  to 
enjoy.  Standing  upon  the  uplands  of  middle  life,  my  child 
hood  and  youth  seem  like  the  experiences  of  another  planet; 
and  though  I  have  suffered  much  from  the  tortures  of  dis 
turbed  functions,  diseased  nerves,  sensibilities  unnaturally 
acute,  the  war  in  my  members  between  the  spirit  and  the  flesh, 


522  JOHX  JAMES  INGALLS. 

the  agonies  of  conflict  between  unconquerable  appetites,  pas 
sions,  impulses,  and  ambitions,  and  a  conscience  too  sensitive 
to  submit  to  moral  anodynes,  yet  I  have  much  to  recall  with 
gratitude  to  some  Benign  Power  that  has  given  me  moderate 
measure  of  worldly  success,  a  modest  competence,  and  a  reason 
able  assurance  of  the  esteem  of  my  fellows ;  a  happy  home, 
and  hopeful  children,  whom  it  shall  be  my  chief  care  to  teach 
to  shun  the  errors  that  have  been  my  bane. 

I  have  thought  much,  also,  of  that  benevolent  destiny  that 
has  protracted  our  existence  as  a  family,  unbroken  through  so 
many  years;  that  gave  to  us  in  our  early  years  the  benefit 
and  advantages  of  parental  restraint  and  care,  and  has  given 
to  you  the  opportunity  of  seeing  the  practical  results  of  your 
anxiety  and  toil  in  the  establishment  of  your  children  in  repu 
table  positions  in  widely  dissociated  spheres  in  life.  As  time 
passes  on,  the  burden  of  existence  becomes  more  grievous: 
these  anniversaries,  once  so  bright  and  festal,  grow  ominous  with 
shadows,  and  have  a  deep,  sad,  and  solemn  significance.  Laden 
with  the  inexpressible  pathos,  the  yearning  regrets,  the  fare 
wells  of  the  past,  its  melancholy  and  its  eternal  pain,  they  also 
point  with  prophetic  augury  to  that  future,  near  or  far,  when 
anniversaries  shall  be  no  more.  How  happy  they  who  live  so 
that  they  are  never  afraid  to  die ! 

I  trust  that  we  may  know  many  returns  of  this  ancieat  fes 
tival;  but,  more  than  that,  I  hope  that  when,  on  some  future 
Thanksgiving,  the  last  survivor  of  us  all  recalls  the  vivid  mem 
ories  of  those  who  have  gone  before,  no  grief  may  dim  his  vis 
ion  save  that  which  separation  always  brings,  and  that  he  may 
confidently  and  gratefully  anticipate  the  hour  which  shall  sum 
mon  him  to  join  a  reunited  family  in  a  brighter  world  than 
this;  a  world  which  shall  seem  as  the  glorious  wakening  from 


523 

a  fevered  dream,  where  sorrow  has  no  dominion,  where  dis 
tance  cannot  separate,  where  time  cannot  chill,  and  the  tragic 
limitations  of  earthly  being  are  forever  unknown. 
With  love  to  all  at  home, 

Very  truly  your  son,  J.  J.  I. 


WASHINGTON,  March  13,  1874. 
Sweet  Heart: 

The  day  is  dreadful — cold,  cloudy — with  a  gusty  tempest 
from  the  north  bearing  a  storm  of  dust  and  gravel  that  blinds, 
wearies,  and  disgusts. 

The  great  senator  [Charles  Sumner]  was  borne  to  the  Cap 
itol  at  nine  and  placed  beneath  the  canopy  in  the  Rotunda  in 
a  square  casket  upon  a  black  base,  and  covered  with  the  rarest 
and  costliest  flowers — lilies,  violets,  japonicas,  smilax,  camellias 
in  wreaths,  garlands,  crosses,  with  evergreens  prophetic  of  im 
mortality.  A  dense  surge  of  humanity  moved  endlessly  through 
the  corridors,  aimlessly,  curiously,  black,  white,  ragged,  un 
kempt,  chilled  with  the  cold  blasts,  and  filing  past  the  cold, 
livid,  discolored  face  that  lay  beneath  the  transparent  glass 
like  a  drowned  man  under  the  ice.  There  were  no  tears.  The 
scene  was  heartless.  Loud  talk,  vain  babbling,  and  senseless 
laughter  echoed  through  the  stony  thoroughfares ;  and  still  the 
throng  surged  on  and  on,  without  beginning  and  without  end. 

The  Senate  galleries  were  densely  packed  at  an  early  hour. 
Tier  above  tier,  it  was  a  solid  mass  of  faces,  relieved  against 
the  dark  drapery  behind.  At  twelve  the  Senate  was  called  to 
order,  the  journal  read,  and  some  formal  business  transacted. 
We  were  presented  with  black  gloves  and  crape  on  the  left  arm. 
Soon  the  House  of  Representatives  were  announced,  and  took 


524  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

their  places  on  the  south  side  of  the  chamber;  then  the  repre 
sentatives  from  Massachusetts  with  their  families  as  mourners, 
noticeably  old  Ben  Butler  with  his  wife,  a  tall,  graceful,  striking- 
looking  woman  with  aristocratic  features  and  bearing;  then 
the  chief  justice  and  associate  justices  of  the  Supreme  Court  in 
their  black  gowns ;  then  the  officers  of  the  Army  and  Navy ;  the 
diplomatic  corps  in  plain  dress,  headed  by  the  formal  courtier, 
Sir  Edward  Thornton ;  then  President  Grant  and  his  Cabinet, 
who  sat  by  the  head  of  the  coffin,  the  silver  mountings  of  which 
shone  through  the  mass  of  flowers.  The  President  was  dressed 
in  plain,  dark  clothes,  and  sat  as  expressionless  as  stone,  some 
times  drumming  his  hat  upon  his  knee. 

The  scene  was  exceedingly  impressive,  and  the  solemnities 
were  austere,  consisting  only  of  prayer  and  selections  read  from 
the  Scriptures.  At  ten  minutes  past  one  the  amen  was  pro 
nounced,  and  the  House,  the  Court,  the  President,  and  the 
guests  retired  slowly  from  the  chamber,  and  the  Senate  ad 
journed  till  Tuesday  noon. 

I  send  you  some  violets  from  a  great  purple  mass  crowned 
with  white  that  exhaled  their  fragrance  in  the  dim  chamber 
that  shall  know  him  no  more  forever.  Keep  them  as  a  me 
mento  of  a  great  life  that  has  ended  to-day. 

I  woke  at  half  past  two  this  morning  after,  bad  dreams, 
feverish  and  restless,  and  longing  for  you  and  for  Baby  Con 
stance,  who  has  grown  so  tenderly  in  my  heart.  Much  of  our 
united  lives  came  back  to  me,  incidents  forgotten,  songs  you 
sung  to  Ruth  in  winter  midnights  in  the  little  back  room  up 
stairs  so  long  ago;  looks,  caresses;  painful,  sad  regrets  for  the 
injuries  inflicted  upon  your  love  by  my  indifference  and  cold 
ness  and  unkindness ;  wonder  that  your  love  had  not  ebbed 
away  from  me  and  left  me  stranded  in  misery  forever;  hopes 


LETTERS.  .     525 

that  we  might  not  either  be  left  long  upon  this  desolate  earth 
to  mourn  the  other's  loss.  Oh,  my  darling!  my  heart  cries 
out  for  you  and  will  not  be  comforted.  You  must  never  for 
sake  me,  here  or  hereafter.  If  you  go  before  me  to  the  undis 
covered  country,  guard  me,  and  wait  for  me.  If  I  precede 
you,  search  for  me  till  you  find  me,  with  entreaties  and  impor 
tunities  that  will  permit  no  denial,  but  will  rescue  me,  though 
ages  intervene,  from  the  profoundest  abyss. 

I  received  your  letter  this  morning  in  which  you  speak  of 
the  excitement  about  the  judgeship,  which  has  now,  I  suppose, 
finally  terminated.  Horton  could  not  be  appointed  for  many 
reasons,  chiefly  because  the  delegation  was  against  him  upon 
general  grounds  connected  with  his  personal  and  political 
career.  Pomeroy  made  himself  specially  obnoxious  by  med 
dling  in  the  matter,  and  at  one  time  I  thought  I  was  to  be 
beaten,  as  the  President  told  me  he  would  not  appoint  Foster, 
and  if  we  did  not  compromise  and  agree  on  some  other  man,  he 
would  take  charge  of  the  matter  himself.  The  question  at  last 
became  one  purely  of  opposition  to  me,  and  the  representa 
tives  openly  boasted  that  they  had  at  last  got  me  beaten ;  but 
the  result  has  strengthened  me  greatly  here  and  at  home. 
Horton  promised  the  clerkship  to  a  score,  I  presume,  and  I  am 
glad  to  know  the  secret  of  Mrs.  -  — 's  advocacy;  but  it 
may  console  her  to  know  that  he  also  promised  it  to  Joe  Wil 
son,  Spaulding,  Jo.  Talbott,  and  many  others,  male  and  female. 
Perhaps  the  future  may  have  some  reward  for  her  fidelity  to 
his  cause  and  her  support  of  his  fortunes. 

This  is  a  long  letter,  longer  than  I  intended  to  inflict  upon 
you  when  I  began;  but  I  could  continue  for  an  hour,  did  my 
other  engagements  afford  me  the  time  to  spare. 


526  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

I  hope  you  are  comfortable  and  contented,  and  that  you 
will  make  your  life  active  and  useful,  and  not  brood  in  solitude 
over  our  separation.  You  have  the  children  with  you,  while  I 
have  nothing  but  the  memory  of  you  and  them  to  console  me 
in  my  loneliness. 

Write  me  often,  and  think  always  with  tender  love  of 

Your  faithful  and  affectionate  HUSBAND. 


WASHINGTON,  Sunday,  May  13. 
My  dearest  Love: 

Pullman  regulates  the  temperature  of  his  carriages  by  the 
calendar,  and  not  by  the  thermometer — no  fires  after  May  ist, 
and  but  one  blanket ;  so  that  my  journey  was  not  wholly  com 
fortable.  Then,  at  breakfast  in  the  Union  Depot  at  St.  Louis, 
Friday  morning,  the  top  windows  at  the  north  were  open,  and 
a  cataract  of  cold,  damp  air  poured  down  my  back  into  my 
pantaloon  pockets  and  stockings.  So  that  I  was  chilly  and 
goosefleshy  all  day,  and  could  not  get  warm  through  the  night. 

From  St.  Louis  to  Washington,  where  I  arrived  about  nine 
p.  M.  Saturday,  I  continuously  read  the  letters  of  the  wife 
of  Thomas  Carlyle,  annotated  by  him  after  her  death.  I 
never  specially  "honed"  after  him,  even  in  my  callow  days; 
but  the  letters  are  dramatically  interesting.  They  disclose  a 
most  desolate,  gloomy,  and  lamentable  domestic  tragedy,  and 
are  not  without  instructive  admonition.  I  will  send  or  bring 
them  to  you.  The  unavailing  penitence  of  the  selfish,  dyspep 
tic,  irascible,  tyrannical  old  man,  after  she  had  left  him  forever 
to  his  gruel  and  his  grumbling,  is  quite  pathetic.  She  does  not 
seem  to  have  loved  him  much,  if  at  all,  indeed,  nor  to  have 


LETTERS.  527 

been  specially  faithful  to  him,  I  judge ;  but  in  one  way  she  was 
his  slave,  and  the  record  of  forty  years  of  servitude  is  dramatic. 
Good  women  are  so  much  better  than  good  men,  and  bad  so 
much  worse.  Where  the  average  lies  I  do  not  know.  Per 
haps  in  gross,  the  moral  aggregate  is  much  the  same. 

I  came  to  my  old  lodgings  direct  from  the  station  and  found 
that  Mrs.  Crawford  had  taken  the  house  in  addition  to  her  own 
across  the  street.  General  Rosecrans  is  here  with  his  family. 
His  wife  is  paralyzed  and  unable  to  move.  He  occupies  my 
old  rooms,  and  his  wife  and  daughter  the  floor  above.  I  am 
opposite  them,  on  the  second  floor,  in  the  rooms  occupied  by 
General  Henderson  last  winter.  There  are  many  other  guests, 
but  unknown  to  me. 

Going  over  to  the  Capitol,  I  bathed,  and  was  shaved  and 
trimmed  by  the  olive-skinned  "John,"  the  only  barber  whose 
attentions  I  could  ever  endure  without  a  shrinking  shudder. 

Judge  Peters  had  come  in  from  Chicago  on  the  morning 
train,  and  we  had  a  consultation,  resulting  in  an  appointment 
for  Monday. 

Mr.  Plumb  is  yet  here,  and  I  expect  to  have  an  interview 
with  him,  perhaps  this  afternoon. 

I  see  no  reason  why  I  may  not  leave  for  Haverhill  by  Thurs 
day,  and  so  home  by  the  middle  of  the  week  thereafter. 

The  season  is  dilatory  here  also ;  foliage  not  being  full,  and 
the  air  icy  and  shivery. 

I  feel  guilty  at  going  away  and  leaving  you  mistress  of  all 
the  confusion  at  home,  but  it  really  seemed  unavoidable  under 
the  circumstances,  and  the  worst  appeared  to  be  over.  I 
thought  of  several  little  things,  while  awake  in  the  cars  the 
other  night,  that  might  have  been  done :  a  niche  for  a  vase  or 
statuette  in  the  stairway  in  the  space  between  the  curved  par- 


528  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

tition  and  the  chamber  wall;  an  upright  register  in  the  south 
library  wall,  under  the  lower  shelf  in  the  new  partition,  etc.,  etc. ; 
but  "the  wished-for  comes  too  late."  Don't  forget  to  have 
the  windows  all  made  weather-proof,  and  the  floors  planed 
down  among  the  finishing  touches,  and  the  well-curb  and  plat 
form  repaired,  and  the  veranda  floors  repaired  also,  but  not 
wholly  relaid,  as  Neal  will  be  sure  to  want  to  do  if  not  reso 
lutely  restrained. 

I  hope  the  dear  little  anonymous  baby  continues  to  thrive. 
The  delicate  spark  of  her  life  was  so  near  going  out  wholly  that 
I  believe  her  preservation  bodes  good  fortune  for  her  and  the 
world  into  which  she  so  prematurely  came.  But  I  babble.  So 
good-bye  for  to-day. 

I  hope  the  children  are  all  obedient.  Give  them  my  love. 
Your  own  J.  J.  I. 


UNITED  STATES  SENATE  CHAMBER, 

WASHINGTON,  May  13,  1881. 
Dear  Father: 

I  imagine  that  our  dishes  are  bottom  up  when  it  rains  not 
more  than  those  of  our  neighbors.  We  are  all  disposed  to 
think  our  misfortunes  are  exceptional,  our  diseases  peculiar, 
our  destinies  unprecedented ;  but  the  lot  of  humanity  every 
where  is  much  the  same.  Great  careers  are  necessarily  few; 
vast  fortunes  must  be  infrequent ;  kings  and  presidents  are 
scarce,  and  even  the  most  exalted  in  station  and  estate  receive 
about  the  same  average  of  felicity  as  the  rest  of  us.  I  have 
seen  all  classes  and  conditions  of  men,  from  the  lowest  to  the 
loftiest,  and  the  longer  I  live  the  more  I  am  convinced  that  hap 
piness  is  in  the  individual,  and  not  in  his  accidents.  Many 


LETTERS.  529 

things  seem  alluring  that  attained  have  no  charm,  and  many 
lives  appear  humble  and  obscure  that  are  the  vestibule  of  Par 
adise.  And,  after  all,  whether  well  or  ill,  the  longest  life  is  but 
a  brief  pulsation,  like  the  momentary  flash  of  a  firefly  in  a  gar 
den  at  night;  and  whether  its  transitory  torch  is  to  be  extin 
guished  forever  or  to  be  relighted  and  burn  eternally,  we  hope 
and  dream,  but  know  not. 
Love  to  the  family. 

Very  truly  your  son,  J.  J.  I. 


ATCHISON,  Sunday,  January  24,  10  A.  M. 
Dear  Constance: 

The  cold  wave  seems  to  have  passed  off,  though  I  don't 
like  to  say  much  about  it ;  for  we  had  a  pleasant  day  some  time 
ago  and  talked  considerably  and  chuckled  over  it,  and  that 
night  the  temperature  sank  below  zero  and  stayed  there  for 
two  weeks.  It  was  a  struggle  for  existence.  We  closed  all 
the  doors,  shut  off  the  hall,  cut  off  the  water,  had  fires  in  the 
grates,  stuffed  cotton  in  all  the  crevices,  and  lived  like  Esqui 
maux  in  their  igloos.  But  it  really  is  lovely  this  morning.  I 
went  out  for  a  stroll,  after  breakfast,  on  the  stone  walk,  in  the 
sun.  Two  fat  brown  birds  hopped  about  in  the  branches  of 
one  of  the  shrubs,  and  Jim  Crow  kept  me  company,  sometimes 
walking  alongside,  and  then  going  before,  and  rolling  over  a 
time  or  two  to  attract  attention.  When  I  pulled  his  tail  and 
his  ears,  he  growled  ferociously,  and  hissed  like  a  snake,  and 
then  rolled  over  again. 

As  I  stood  by  the  gate,  looking  down  toward  Mrs.  Crow- 
ley's  cabin — she  and  Tim  are  both  ill  with  the  grip,  influenza, 


530  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

colds,  rheumatism,  antiquity,  etc. — the  pealing  bells  of  St. 
Benedict's  broke  out  into  a  swelling  tumult  of  exulting  mel 
ody,  vibrating  and  rising  and  falling,  rolling  north  and  south 
and  east  and  west,  down  the  valley  and  up  to  the  shining 
zenith,  and,  after  an  entrancing  interval,  died  away  and  were 
still.  It  was  quite  incredible  that  some  shock-headed  Paddy, 
who  probably  carries  a  hod  or  drives  a  dray  during  the  week, 
could,  by  pulling  a  rope  a  few  moments,  produce  such  an 
ecstasy  of  sound  on  Sunday,  without  any  idea  that  I  would 
write  you  a  letter  concerning  it. 

Yes,  it  is  aggravating,  as  you  say,  to  be  obliged  to  suspend 
your  studies  for  a  while,  at  the  busy  season,  too ;  but  it  is  bet 
ter  than  to  keep  on  and  break  down  completely  at  the  end. 
The  mind  has  much  influence,  and  a  cheerful  spirit  is  better 
than  medicine.  Resolve  to  be  well;  don't  brood  upon  dark 
thoughts ;  throw  open  the  windows  of  your  soul  to  the  sun ; 
take  short  views  of  life ;  get  plenty  of  air,  plain  food,  and  sleep, 
with  moderate  exercise. 

Write  to  me  if  there  is  anything  you  want.  I  should  be 
your  friend,  even  if  you  were  not  my  child.  ***** 

I  am  going  away  next  week,  about  the  ist  of  February,  to 
speak  at  Ann  Arbor,  Michigan,  in  Kentucky,  and  some  other 
places,  and  shall  be  absent  perhaps  two  weeks.  A  letter  will 
reach  me  at  the  Grand  Pacific,  Chicago,  Tuesday  and  Wednes 
day,  2d  and  3d,  should  you  write  next  Sunday. 

Affectionately  your  PAPA. 


&/(Q^ 


C-A~<7^£^<7    / 


^6    /^V/W^  -ft- 


53-  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

ATCHISOX,  December  15. 
Dear  Constance: 

The  question  about  the  loss  of  either  of  the  senses  is  so 
much  a  matter  of  sentiment  and  individual  temperament  that 
there  is  nothing  to  be  said  by  one  that  could  influence  another. 

To  me  the  loss  of  sight  would  be  the  greatest  affliction, 
because  my  love  of  Nature  and  physical  beauty  is  so  strong. 
Hearing  is  limited.  At  a  short  distance  the  loudest  sounds 
are  inaudible.  So  with  taste.  It  gives  delight,  but  the  body 
can  be  nourished  without  the  sensibility  of  the  palate  and  the 
tongue.  If  dumb,  we  can  still  write  and  read  and  hear.  If 
we  are  unable  to  perceive  the  fragrance  of  flowers,  we  can  yet 
be  charmed  with  their  color  and  outline.  If  deaf,  we  can 
communicate  with  the  eye  and  the  pen.  But  to  be  blind  is  to 
be  imprisoned  in  perpetual  darkness;  shut  out  from  the  uni 
verse,  from  the  aspects  of  the  earth,  the  sky,  and  the  sea; 
unable  to  go  or  come ;  compelled  to  be  led  and  fed  and  dressed 
like  an  infant,  and  denied  the  joy  of  beholding  the  faces  that 
we  love.  But,  after  all,  we  adapt  ourselves  to  these  privations 
without  much  grief.  I  have  seen  many  blind  persons,  but 
they  are  generally  cheerful  enough,  and  seem  to  enjoy  life  very 
well. 

The  soul  is  independent  of  the  senses.  These  are  the  ave 
nues  through  which  it  communicates  with  others  temporarily, 
and  are  not  necessary  to  its  existence.  I  have  no  doubt  there 
are  many  senses,  we  do  not  possess ;  many  properties  of  matter 

with    which    we  .are    unacquainted;    many  more    dimensions 

~~^>  A**,  _&«'''«••  ' 
than  length,  breadth,  and  thickness;    many  more  colors  than 

those  which- glow  ijntfhe  rainbow  and  the  rose; "many  condi 
tions  immediately.^bout  and  around  and  within -that  we  do 

v^J*  >v.*  >S         ».'' 

not  perceive  any  more  than  my  horse  understands  history  and 


LETTERS.  533 

arithmetic,  or  than  a  fish  swimming  in  the,  ocean  comprehends 
the  great  steamships  with  their  cargoes  of  men  and  women  and 
merchandise  ploughing  the  waves  which  are  his  firmament. 

It  is.  an  incomparable  morning.  The  grass  glitters  with 
thick  white  frost,  and  the  dense  columns  of  smoke  and  vapor 
from  the  town  below  ascend  slowly  toward  the  dazzling  sky. 
The  vibrations  of  the  uco&vent  bell,  ringing  for  nine,  linger  for 
an  instant,  cease,  and  are  still. 

Your  affectionate  PAPA. 


WASHINGTON,  March  5,  1875. 
My  dearest  Wife:  rt(^  „. 

The  Forty-third  Congress  ended  amid  uproar  and  confusion 
indescribable. 

I  went  to  the  Capitol  at  ten  A.  M.  on  Wednesday  and  re 
mained  until  one  the  next  afternoon  without  sleep  and  almost 
without  eating.  I  presided  much  of  the  time,  and  was  in  the 
chair  till  within  five  minutes  of  the  final  adjournment.  Such 
tumult  and  turmoil  I  never  witnessed  before;  but  I  got  through 
without  special  difficulty,  and  was  much  complimented  for 
my  coolness  and  adroit  management  of  the  disorderly  ele 
ments.  The  Vice-President  was  absolutely  helpless  and  sur 
rendered  in  despair,  and  sent  for  me  to  take  his  place  while 
he  retired  to  his  room.  The  attendance  in  the  galleries  was 
immense. 

I  came  home  and  went  to  bed  at  two  P.  M.  and  slept  till 
eight.  Took  a  light  lunch  and  went  again  to  bed  at  ten  and 
slept  till  nine  this  morning. 

The  Senate  assembled  at  twelve  this  noon  in  extraordinary 
session.  The  new  senators  were  sworn  in,  and  the  proceedings 


534  .  JOHN  JAMES  INGALLS. 

were  very  interesting.     The  galleries  and  floor  were  thronged 
with  ladies  and  strangers. 

Old  Andy  Johnson,  whom  I  had  never  seen  before,  was 
greeted  with  applause,  as  was  General  Burnside,  the  new  sen 
ator  from  Rhode  Island.  We  sat  an  hour,  and  then  adjourned 
till  Monday. 

I  have  taken  Scott's  seat  in  the  middle  aisle,  directly  across 
from  Mr.  Conkling. 

The  Pinchbeck  case  is  to  be  considered ;  but  I  do  not  think 
it  will  take  long  to  dispose  of  it,  as  everybody  is  anxious  to  get 
away  as  soon  as  possible. 

The  weather  is  inconceivably  horrible — cold,  wet,  raining 
all  day  and  snowing  or  sleeting  all  night,  with  occasional  fogs 
thrown  in  by  way  of  variety. 

How  much  I  long  to  be  at  home  I  cannot  tell  you.  I  shall 
leave  at  the  first  possible  moment  that  public  business  will 
permit.  I  feel  somewhat  fatigued,  now  that  the  stimulus  of 
excitement  is  over;  but  hope  soon  to  recover  my  usual  elas 
ticity.  I  know  how  much  you  need  me  and  what  a  relief  it 
will  be  to  you  to  turn  the  domestic  sceptre  over  to 

Your  affectionate  HUSBAND. 


INDEX. 


Page. 

Preface 5 

Introductory ~ 

John  James  Ingalls 17 

Memoir. 

Chapter  I , 27 

Chapter  II 30 

Chapter  III 36 

Chapter  IV 39 

Chapter  V 45 

Chapter  VI 48 

Chapter  VII 56 

Chapter  VIII 60 

Albert  Dean  Richardson 67 

John  Brown's  Place  in  History 76 

Eulogy  on  Senator  H.  B.  Anthony 93 

Happiness 96 

Opportunity 97 

My  Spring  Residence 98 

Blue  Grass 100 

Catfish  Aristocracy 117 

Regis  Loisel 129 

The  Last  of  the  Jayhawkers 145 

The  "Good-Fellow  Girl" 157 

The  Annexation  of  Hawaii 161 

A  Nation's  Genesis 169 

A  Dream  of  Empire 174 

Hallucinations  of  Despair 178 

Socialism  Is  Impossible 183 

Men  Are  Not  Created  Equal 189 

The  Poor  Man's  Chance 195 

The  Immortality  of  the  Soul 1 99 

The  Character  of  General  Grant — An  Enigma 204 

Why  Christianity  Has  Triumphed  rr.if} 208 

Gettysburg  Oration.  .  .777777777." 213 

535 


536  INDEX. 

Page. 

Address  at  Osawatomie 228 

I  ulogy  on  Senator  J.  B.  Beck 263 

Eulogy  on  Senator  B.  H.  Hill 268 

Eulogy  on  Congressman  J.  N.  Burnes 272 

Fiat  Justitia 277 

"  The  Image  and  Superscription  of  Caesar" 309 

The  Humorous  Side  of  Politics  339 

Famous  Feuds 348 

The  Stormy  Days  of  the  Electoral  Commission .366 

The  Mountains 386 

The  Sea 387 

Idyl 389 

Epigrams 390 

Garfield:  The  Man  of  the  People 395 

Elaine's  Life  Tragedy 415 

Kansas:     1541 — 1891 443 

"Ad  Astra  per  Aspera" 481 

Kansas 48  3 

A  Photographic  Interview 490 

Letters 520 


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